INTRODUCTION 



gives to the book one of its most character- 
istic notes. The first few pages strike this 
note in the famous conversation with the 
Turkish Pasha at Belgrade. It is heard fre- 
quently throughout, but the forms it takes 
are so various that it never becomes weari- 
some. It is an eminently English note, as 
indeed the whole book is English to the core. 
Even the upper-class Englishman, self-con- 
scious, cultivated, imperturbable, a man of 
the world if ever there was one, permits 
himself an occasional gush of sentiment, 
for he, too, is human. But the author of 
"Eothen" quickly represses such weak- 
nesses and returns to his normal pose of 
well-bred dignity. Religious feeling, his- 
torical enthusiasm, even the love of nature, 
are kept well in hand by this impassive 
Briton, who . never lets you forget, as he 
wanders by the Jordan, that he is return- 
ing to Piccadilly and the House of Com- 
mons. An impressionist record of travel 
is necessarily a record of the traveler as 
well as of what he has seen; and that 
contrast of East and West which has been 
above referred to comes out in no way better 
than in the contrast between the writer and 
those of whom he writes. 

XV 



INTRODUCTION 



The half-century that has passed since 
"Eothen" appeared has wrought great 
changes even on the unchanging East. 
Turkish dominion has receded from Bel- 
grade to the other side of the Balkans. Ser- 
via, Bosnia, Bulgaria have all been restored 
to Christendom. The Sultan has now but 
a precarious hold on Europe, and the final 
extinction of his rule even in Asia seems 
happily not far off. Cairo has become a half- 
French city, and Egypt a half-English coun- 
try. Asia Minor is traversed by railroads, 
and ocean steamers pass from the Mediter- 
ranean to the Red Sea. In another half-cen- 
tury all western Asia may have passed under 
the control of one or more European powers. 
The most characteristic features of Oriental 
life, its immobility, its cruelty, its kindly 
hospitality, its mixture of simplicity and 
cunning, its social equality strangely joined 
to political tyranny, are already beginning to 
vanish from many places, and before the 
year 2000 A.D. is reached may have disap- 
peared. Much that is picturesque and 
beautiful, muchthat is winning and pathetic, 
much that carries us back to the early 
world, to the world of Abraham and Moses 
and Solomon, of Alexander the Great and 



INTRODUCTION 



Zenobia, of Mohammed and Saladin, will 
have perished forever. Thus a picture of 
the East as it stood before the effacing fin- 
ger of our civilization had begun to pass 
over it will be even more precious to our 
descendants than it is to us; and among the 
books that have given such a picture in 
clear and vivid colors, none will survive 
longer than "Eothen." 

James Bryce. 



xvii 



PREFACE 
ADDRESSED BY THE AUTHOR 
TO ONE OF HIS FRIENDS 



WHEN you first entertained the idea of 
traveling in the East, you asked me 
to send you an outline of the tour 
which I had made, in order that you might the 
better be able to choose a route for yourself. 
In answer to this request I gave you a large 
French map, on which the course of my jour- 
ney had been carefully marked ; but I did not 
conceal from myself that this was rather a dry 
mode for a man to adopt, when he wished to 
impart the results of his experience to a dear 
and intimate friend. Now, long before the 
period of your planning an Oriental tour, I had 
intended to write some account of my Eastern 
travels. I had, indeed, begun the task, and had 
failed ; I had begun it a second time, and failing 
again, had abandoned my attempt with a sensa- 
tion of utter distaste. I was unable to speak out, 
and chiefly, I think, for this reason — that I knew 
not to whom I was speaking. It might be you, or, 
perhaps, our Lady of Bitterness, who would read 
my story ; or it might be some member of the 
Royal Statistical Society, and how on earth was I 
to write in a way that would do for all three? 

Well— your request for a sketch of my tour 
suggested to me the idea of complying with your 
wish by a revival of my twice-abandoned attempt. 
I tried ; and the pleasure and confidence which 

xix 



EOTHEN 



[Preface 



I felt in speaking to yon soon made my task 
so easy and even amusing that after a while 
(though not in time for your tour) I completed 
the scrawl from which this book was originally 
printed. 

The very feeling, however, which enabled me 
to write thus freely prevented me from robing 
my thoughts in that grave and decorous style 
which I should have maintained if I had pro- 
fessed to lecture the public. Whilst I feigned to 
myself that you, and you only, were listening, I 
could not by possibility speak very solemnly. 
Heaven forbid that I should talk to my own 
genial friend as though he were a great and en- 
lightened community, or any other respectable 
aggregate ! 

Yet I well understood that the mere fact of my 
professing to speak to you, rather than to the 
public generally, could not perfectly excuse me 
for printing a narrative too roughly worded, and 
accordingly, in revising the proof-sheets, I have 
struck out those phrases which seemed to be less 
fit for a published volume than for intimate con- 
versation. It is hardly to be expected, however, 
that correction of this kind should be perfectly 
complete, or that the almost boisterous tone in 
which many parts of the book were originally 
written should be thoroughly subdued. I ven- 
ture, therefore, to ask that the familiarity of 
language still possibly apparent in the work may 
be laid to the account of our delightful intimacy, 
rather than to any presumptuous motive. I feel, 
as you know, much too timidly, too distantly, and 
too respectfully toward the public to be capable 
of seeking to put myself on terms of easy fellow- 
ship with strange and casual readers. 

XX 



Preface] 



EOTHEN 



It is right to forewarn people (and I have tried 
to do this as well as I can by my studiously 
unpromising title-page 1 ) that the book is quite 
superficial in its character. I have endeavored 
to discard from it all valuable matter derived 
from the works of others, and it appears to me 
that my efforts in this direction have been at- 
tended with great success ; I believe I may truly 
acknowledge that from all details of geographical 
discovery or antiquarian research, from all display 
of "sound learning and religious knowledge," 
from all historical and scientific illustrations, from 
all useful statistics, from all political disquisitions, 
and from all good moral reflections, the volume 
is thoroughly free. 

My excuse for the book is its truth : you and I 
know a man fond of hazarding elaborate jokes, 
who, whenever a story of his happens not to go 
down as wit, will evade the awkwardness of the 
failure by bravely maintaining that all he has said 
is pure fact. I can honestly take this decent, 
though humble, mode of escape. My narrative 
is not merely righteous in matters of fact (where 
fact is in question), but it is true in this larger 
sense : it conveys, not those impressions which 
ought to have been produced upon any "well con- 
stituted mind," but those which were really and 
truly received at the time of his rambles by a 
headstrong and not very amiable traveler, whose 
prejudices in favor of other people's notions were 
then exceedingly slight. As I have felt, so I have 
written ; and the result is that there will often be 

1 " Eothen " is, I hope, almost the only hard word to be found 
in the book; it is written in Greek jjwflev (Attice, with an 
aspirated e instead of the tj), and signifies "from the early 
dawn," "from the East" (Donn. Lex., 4th edition). 

xxi 



EOTHEN 



[Preface 



found in my narrative a jarring discord between 
the associations properly belonging to interesting 
sites, and the tone in which I speak of them. 
This seemingly perverse mode of treating the 
subject is forced upon me by my plan of adhering 
to sentimental truth, and really does not result 
from any impertinent wish to tease or trifle with 
readers. I ought, for instance, to have felt as 
strongly in Judea as in Galilee, but it was not so 
in fact. The religious sentiment — born in soli- 
tude — which had heated my brain in the Sanc- 
tuary of Nazareth was rudely chilled at the foot 
of Zion by disenchanting scenes, and this change 
is accordingly disclosed by the perfectly worldly 
tone in which I speak of Jerusalem and Beth- 
lehem. 

My notion of dwelling precisely upon those 
matters which happened to interest me, and upon 
none other, would, of course, be intolerable in a 
regular book of travels. If I had been passing 
through countries not previously explored, it 
would have been sadly perverse to withhold care- 
ful descriptions of admirable objects merely be- 
cause my own feelings of interest in them may 
have happened to flag ; but where the countries 
which one visits have been thoroughly and ably 
described, and even artistically illustrated, by 
others, one is fully at liberty to say as little — 
though not quite so much — as one chooses. Now, 
a traveler is a creature not always looking at 
sights. He remembers (how often!) the happy 
land of his birth ; he has, too, his moments of 
humble enthusiasm about fire and food, about 
shade and drink ; and if he gives to these feelings 
anything like the prominence which really be- 
longed to them at the time of his traveling, he 

xxii 



Preface] 



EOTHEN 



will not seem a very good teacher. Once having 
determined to write the sheer truth concerning 
the things which chiefly have interested him, he 
must, and he will, sing a sadly long strain about 
Self; he will talk for whole pages together about 
his bivouac fire, and ruin the ruins of Baalbec with 
eight or ten cold lines. 

But it seems to me that this egotism of a trav- 
eler, however incessant, however shameless and 
obtrusive, must still convey some true ideas of the 
country through which he has passed. His very 
selfishness — his habit of referring the whole ex- 
ternal world to his own sensations — compels him, 
as it were, in his writings to observe the laws of 
perspective; he tells you of objects not as he 
knows them to be, but as they seemed to him. 
The people and the things that most concern him 
personally, however mean and insignificant, take 
large proportions in his picture, because they 
stand so near to him. He shows you his drago- 
man and the gaunt features of his Arabs, his tent, 
his kneeling camels, his baggage strewed upon 
the sand ; but the proper wonders of the land — the 
cities, the mighty ruins, and monuments of by- 
gone ages — he throws back faintly in the distance. 
It is thus that he felt, and thus he strives to re- 
peat, the scenes of the Elder World. You may 
listen to him forever without learning much in the 
way of statistics, but perhaps if you bear with him 
long enough you may find yourself slowly and 
faintly impressed with the realities of Eastern 
travel. 

My scheme of refusing to dwell upon matters 
which failed to interest my own feelings has been 
departed from in one instance — namely, in my 
detail of the late Lady Hester Stanhope's conver- 

xxiii 



EOTHEN 



[Preface 



sation on supernatural topics. The truth is that 
I have been much questioned on this subject, and 
I thought that my best plan would be to write 
down at once all that I could ever have to say 
concerning the personage whose career has ex- 
cited so much curiosity amongst Englishwomen. 
The result is that my account of the lady goes to 
a length which is not justified either by the im- 
portance of the subject or by the extent to which 
it interested the narrator. 

You will see that I constantly speak of "my 
people," "my party," "my Arabs," and so on, 
using terms which might possibly seem to im- 
ply that I moved about with a pompous retinue. 
This, of course, was not the case. I traveled with 
the simplicity proper to my station, as one of the 
industrious class, who was not flying from his 
country because of ennui, but was strengthening 
his will and tempering the metal of his nature for 
that life of toil and conflict in which he is now 
engaged. But an Englishman journeying in the 
East must necessarily have with him dragomen 
capable of interpreting the Oriental languages ; 
the absence of wheeled carriages obliges him to 
use several beasts of burden for his baggage, as 
well as for himself and his attendants ; the owners 
of the horses or camels, with their slaves or ser- 
vants, fall in as part of his train ; and altogether 
the cavalcade becomes rather numerous, without, 
however, occasioning any proportionate increase 
of expense. When a traveler speaks of all these 
followers in mass, he calls them his "people," or 
his "troop," or his "party," without intending 
to make you believe that he is therefore a sover- 
eign prince. 

You will see that I sometimes follow the custom 

xxiv 



Preface] 



EOTHEN 



of the Scots in describing my fellow-countrymen 
by the names of their paternal homes. 

Of course all these explanations are meant for 
casual readers. To you, without one syllable of 
excuse or deprecation, and in all the confidence 
of a friendship that never yet was clouded, I give 
the long-promised volume, and add but this one 
"Good-by," for I dare not stand greeting you 
here. 



XXV 



EOTHEN 



CHAPTER 
I 



Over the border. 



AT Semlin I still was encompassed by 
/\ the scenes and the sounds of f amil- 
jL~\~ iar life; the din of a busy world still 
vexed and cheered me; the unveiled faces 
of women still shone in the light of day. 
Yet, whenever I chose to look southward, 
I saw the Ottoman's fortress,— austere, and 
darkly impending high over the vale of the 
Danube,— historic Belgrade. I had come, 
as it were, to the end of this wheel-going 
Europe, and now my eyes would see the 
splendor and havoc of the East. 

The two frontier towns are less than 
a gunshot apart, yet their people hold 
no communion. The Hungarian, on the 
north, and the Turk and Servian, on the 
southern side of the Save, are as much 
asunder as though there were fifty broad 
provinces that lay in the path between 
them. Of the men that bustled around me 
in the streets of Semlin, there was not, 
1 1 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter I 



perhaps, one who had ever gone down to 
look upon the stranger race dwelling under 
the walls of that opposite castle. It is 
the plague, and the dread of the plague, 
that divide the one people from the other. 
All coming and going stands forbidden by 
the terrors of the yellow flag. If you dare 
to break the laws of the quarantine, you 
will be tried with military haste; the court 
will scream out your sentence to you from 
a tribunal some fifty yards off; the priest, 
instead of gently whispering to you the 
sweet hopes of religion, will console you at 
dueling distance, and after that you will 
find yourself carefully shot, and carelessly 
buried in the ground of the lazaretto. 

When all was in order for our departure, 
we walked down to the precincts of the 
quarantine establishment, and here awaited 
us the 66 compromised " 1 officer of the Aus- 
trian government, whose duty it is to super- 
intend the passage of the frontier, and who 
for that purpose lives in a state of per- 
petual excommunication. The boats, with 
their " compromised " rowers, were also in 
readiness. 

1 A "compromised" person is one who has been in con- 
tact with people or things supposed to be capable of con- 
veying infection. As a general rule, the whole Ottoman 
Empire lies constantly under this terrible ban. The "yel- 
low flag " is the ensign of the quarantine establishment. 

2 



Chapter I] 



EOTHEN 



After coming in contact with any crea- 
ture or thing belonging to the Ottoman 
Empire, it would be impossible for us to 
return to the Austrian territory without 
undergoing an imprisonment of fourteen 
days in the lazaretto. We felt, therefore, 
that before we committed ourselves it was 
important to take care that none of the ar- 
rangements necessary for the journey had 
been forgotten, and in our anxiety to avoid 
such a misfortune we managed the work of 
departure from Semlin with nearly as much 
solemnity as if we had been departing this 
life. Some obliging persons from whom we 
had received civilities during our short stay 
in the place came down to say their farewell 
at the river's side; and now, as we stood 
with them at the distance of three or four 
yards from the " compromised " officer, they 
asked if we were perfectly certain that we 
had wound up all our affairs in Christen- 
dom, and whether we had no parting re- 
quests to make. We repeated the caution 
to our servants, and took anxious thought 
lest by any possibility we might be cut off 
from some cherished object of affection:— 
were they quite sure that nothing had been 
forgotten— that there was no fragrant 
dressing-case with its gold-compelling let- 
ters of credit, from which we might be 
3 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter I 



parting forever? No; every one of our 
treasures lay safely stowed in the boat, and 
we— we were ready to follow. Now, there- 
fore, we shook hands with our Semlin 
friends, and they immediately retreated for 
three or four paces, so as to leave us in 
the center of a space between them and 
the " compromised " officer. The latter then 
advanced, and asking once more if we had 
done with the civilized world, held forth his 
hand. I met it with mine, and there was 
an end to Christendom for many a day to 
come. 

We soon neared the southern bank of 
the river, but no sounds came down from 
the blank walls above, and there was no 
living thing that we could yet see, except 
one great hovering bird of the vulture 
race, flying low and intent, and wheeling 
round and round over the pest-accused 
city. 

But presently there issued from the pos- 
tern a group of human beings— beings with 
immortal souls, and possibly some reason- 
ing faculties, but to me the grand point 
was this, that they had real, substantial, 
and incontrovertible turbans. They made 
for the point towards which we were steer- 
ing, and when, at last, I sprang upon the 
shore, I heard and saw myself now first 
4 



Chapter I] 



EOTHEN 



surrounded by men of Asiatic blood. I have 
since ridden through the land of the Os- 
manlis, from the Servian border to the 
Golden Horn, from the Gulf of Sataliah to 
the tomb of Achilles, but never have I seen 
such hyper-Turk looking fellows as those 
who received me on the banks of the Save. 
They were men in the humblest order of 
life, having come to meet our boat in the 
hope of earning something by carrying our 
luggage up to the city; but, poor though 
they were, it was plain that they were Turks 
of the proud old school, and had not yet 
forgotten the fierce, careless bearing of 
their once victorious race. 

Though the province of Servia generally 
has obtained a kind of independence, yet 
Belgrade, as being a place of strength on 
the frontier, is still garrisoned by Turkish 
troops, under the command of a Pasha. 
Whether the fellows who now surrounded 
us were soldiers or peaceful inhabitants I 
did not understand. They wore the old Turk- 
ish costume— vests and jackets of many and 
brilliant colors, divided from the loose petti- 
coat-trousers by heavy volumes of shawl, so 
thickly folded around their waists as to 
give the meager wearers something of the 
dignity of true corpulence. This cincture 
inclosed a whole bundle of weapons; no man 
5 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter I 



bore less than one brace of immensely long 
pistols, and a yataghan (or cutlass), with a 
dagger or two, of various shapes and sizes. 
Most of these arms were inlaid with silver 
highly burnished, and they shone all the 
more lustrously for being worn along with 
garments decayed and even tattered (this 
carefulness of his arms is a point of honor 
with the Osmanli; he never allows his 
bright yataghan to suffer from his own 
adversity): then the long, drooping mus- 
tachios, and the ample folds of the once 
white turbans, that lowered over the pier- 
cing eyes and the haggard features of the 
men, gave them an air of gloomy pride, 
and that appearance of trying to be disdain- 
ful under difficulties, which one almost 
always sees in those of the Ottoman peo- 
ple who live and remember old times. They 
looked as if they would have thought them- 
selves more usefully, more honorably, and 
more piously employed in cutting our 
throats than in carrying our portmanteaus. 
The faithful Steel (Methley's Yorkshire ser- 
vant) stood aghast for a moment at the 
sight of his master's luggage upon the 
shoulders of these warlike porters, and 
when at last we began to move he could 
scarcely avoid turning round to cast one 
affectionate look towards Christendom, 
6 



Chapter I] 



EOTHEN 



but quickly again he marched on with the 
steps of a man not frightened exactly, but 
sternly prepared for death, or the Koran, 
or even for plural wives. 

The Moslem quarter of a city is lonely 
and desolate; you go up and down, and on 
over shelving and hillocky paths through 
the narrow lanes walled in by blank, win- 
dowless dwellings; you come out upon an 
open space strewed with the black ruins 
that some late fire has left; you pass by a 
mountain of castaway things, the rubbish 
of centuries, and on it you see numbers of 
big, wolf-like dogs lying torpid under the 
sun, with limbs outstretched to the full, as 
if they were dead; storks or cranes, sitting 
fearless upon the low roofs, look gravely 
down upon you; the still air that you breathe 
is loaded with the scent of citron and pome- 
granate rinds scorched by the sun, or, as 
you approach the bazaar, with the dry, dead 
perfume of strange spices. You long for 
some signs of life, and tread the ground 
more heavily, as though you would wake 
the sleepers with the heel of your boot; 
but the foot falls noiseless upon the crum- 
bling soil of an Eastern city, and silence 
follows you still. Again and again you 
meet turbans and faces of men, but they 
have nothing for you— no welcome, no won- 
7 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter I 



der, no wrath, no scorn; they look upon you 
as we do upon a December's fall of snow- 
as a "seasonable/' unaccountable, uncom- 
fortable work of God, that may have been 
sent for some good purpose, to be revealed 
hereafter. 

Some people had come down to meet us 
with an invitation from the Pasha, and we 
wound our way up to the castle. At the 
gates there were groups of soldiers, some 
smoking, and some lying flat like corpses 
upon the cool stones. We went through 
courts, ascended steps, passed along a cor- 
ridor, and walked into an airy, whitewashed 
room, with an European clock at one end of 
it and Moostapha Pasha at the other. The 
fine old bearded potentate looked very like 
Jove— like Jove, too, in the midst of his 
clouds, for the silvery fumes of the nar- 
ghile 1 hung lightly circling round him. 

The Pasha received us with the smooth, 
kind, gentle manner that belongs to well- 
bred Osmanlis. Then he lightly clapped 
his hands, and instantly the sound filled all 
the lower end of the room with slaves; a 
syllable dropped from his lips, it bowed 
all heads and conjured away the attendants 

i The narghile is a water-pipe upon the plan of the hooka, 
but more gracefully fashioned ; the smoke is drawn by a very 
long, flexible tube that winds its snake-like way from the vase 
to the lips of the beatified smoker. 

8 



Chapter I] 



EOTHEN 



like ghosts. (Their coming and their going 
was thus swift and quiet because their feet 
were hare, and they passed through no 
door, hut only by the yielding folds of a 
purdah.) Soon the coffee-bearers appeared, 
every man carrying separately his tiny cup 
in a small metal stand, and presently to 
each of us there came a pipe-bearer, a grave 
and solemn functionary, who first rested the 
bowl of the chibouk at a measured distance 
on the floor, and then, on this axis, wheeled 
round the long cherry tube, and gracefully 
presented it on half -bended knee. Already 
the fire (well kindled beforehand) was glow- 
ing secure in the bowl, and so, when I 
pressed the amber lip to mine, there was no 
coyness to conquer; the willing fume came 
up and answered my slightest sigh, and 
followed softly every breath inspired, till it 
touched me with some faint sense and un- 
derstanding of Asiatic contentment. 

Asiatic contentment! Yet hardly, per- 
haps, one hour before, I had been wanting 
my bill, and ringing for waiters in a shrill 
and busy hotel. 

In the Ottoman dominions there is 
"scarcely any hereditary influence except 
that belonging to the family of the Sultan, 
and wealth, too, is a highly volatile bless- 
ing, not easily transmitted to the descen- 
9 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter I 



dants of the owner. From these causes it 
results that the people standing in the 
place of nobles and gentry are official per- 
sonages, and though many— indeed, the 
greater number— of these potentates are 
humbly born and bred, you will seldom, I 
think, find them wanting in that polished 
smoothness of manner and those well- 
undulating tones which belong to the best 
Osmanlis. The truth is that most of the 
men in authority have risen from their 
humble station by the arts of the courtier, 
and they keep in their high estate those 
gentle powers of fascination to which they 
owe their success. Yet, unless you can con- 
trive to learn a little of the language, you 
will be rather bored by your visits of cere- 
mony. The intervention of the dragoman is 
fatal to the spirit of conversation. I think 
I should mislead you if I were to attempt 
to give the substance of any particular con- 
versation with Orientals. A traveler may 
write and say that "the Pasha of So-and- 
so was particularly interested in the vast 
progress which has been made in the ap- 
plication of steam, and appeared to under- 
stand the structure of our machinery; that 
he remarked upon the gigantic results of 
our manufacturing industry; showed that 
he possessed considerable knowledge of our 
10 



Chapter I] 



EOTHEN 



Indian affairs and of the constitution of 
the Company, and expressed a lively ad- 
miration of the many sterling qualities for 
which the people of England are distin- 
guished." But the heap of commonplaces 
thus quietly attributed to the Pasha will 
have been founded perhaps on some such 
talking as this: 

Pasha. The Englishman is welcome; 
most blessed among hours is this, the 
hour of his coming. 

Dragoman (to the Traveler). The Pasha 
pays you his compliments. 

Traveler. Give him my best compli- 
ments in return, and say I 'm delighted to 
have the honor of seeing him. 

Dragoman (to the Pasha). His Lordship, 
this Englishman, Lord of London, Scorner 
of Ireland, Suppressor of France, has quitted 
his governments, and left his enemies to 
breathe for a moment, and has crossed the 
broad waters in strict disguise, with a small 
but eternally faithful retinue of followers, 
in order that he might look upon the bright 
countenance of the Pasha among Pashas— 
the Pasha of the everlasting Pashalic of 
Karagholookoldour. 

Traveler (to his Dragoman). What on 
earth have you been saying about London? 
The Pasha will be taking me for a mere 
11 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter I 



cockney. Have not I told you always to 
say that I am from a branch of the family 
of Mudcombe Park, and that I am to be a 
magistrate for the county of Bedfordshire, 
only I 've not qualified, and that I should 
have been a Deputy Lieutenant if it had 
not been for the extraordinary conduct of 
Lord Mountpromise, and that I was a can- 
didate for Bough ton-Soldborough at the last 
election, and that I should have won easy 
if my committee had not been bribed? I 
wish to heaven that if you do say any- 
thing about me, you 'd tell the simple truth. 

Dragoman (is silent). 

PASHA. What says the friendly Lord of 
London? Is there aught that I can grant 
him within the Pashalic of Karagholook- 
oldour? 

Dragoman (growing sulky and literal). 
This friendly Englishman, this branch of 
Mudcombe, this head purveyor of Bough- 
ton-Soldborough, this possible policeman of 
Bedfordshire, is recounting his achieve- 
ments and the number of his titles. 

Pasha. The end of his honors is more 
distant than the ends of the earth, and the 
catalogue of his glorious deeds is brighter 
than the firmament of heaven! 

Dragoman (to the Traveler). The Pasha 
congratulates your Excellency. 

12 



Chapter I] 



EOTHEN 



Traveler. About Boughton-Soldbor- 
ough? The deuce he does! But I want to 
get at his views in relation to the present 
state of the Ottoman Empire. Tell him the 
Houses of Parliament have met, and that 
there has been a speech from the Throne 
pledging England to maintain the integrity 
of the Sultan's dominions. 

Dragoman (to the Pasha). This branch 
of Mudcombe, this possible policeman of 
Bedfordshire, informs your Highness that 
in England the talking houses have met, 
and that the integrity of the Sultan's 
dominions has been assured for ever and 
ever by a speech from the velvet chair. 

PASHA. Wonderful chair! wonderful 
houses!— whir! whir! all by wheels!— whizz! 
whizz! all by steam!— wonderful chair! 
wonderful houses! wonderful people!— 
whir! whir! all by wheels!— whizz! whizz! 
all by steam! 

Traveler (to the Dragoman). What does 
the Pasha mean by that whizzing? He 
does not mean to say, does he, that our 
Government will ever abandon their pledges 
to the Sultan? 

Dragoman. No, your Excellency, but he 
says the English talk by wheels and by 
steam. 

Traveler. That 's an exaggeration; but 
13 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter I 



say that the English really have carried ma- 
chinery to great perfection. Tell the Pasha 
—he '11 be struck with that— that when- 
ever we have any disturbances to put down, 
even at two or three hundred miles from 
London, we can send troops by the thou- 
sand to the scene of action in a few hours. 

Dragoman (recovering his temper and 
freedom of speech). His Excellency, this 
Lord of Mudcombe, observes to your High- 
ness that whenever the Irish or the 
French or the Indians rebel against the 
English, whole armies of soldiers and bri- 
gades of artillery are dropped into a mighty 
chasm called Euston Square, and in the bit- 
ing of a cartridge they rise up again in 
Manchester or Dublin or Paris or Delhi, and 
utterly exterminate the enemies of England 
from the face of the earth. 

PASHA. I know it— I know all; the par- 
ticulars have been faithfully related to me, 
and my mind comprehends locomotives. 
The armies of the English ride upon the 
vapors of boiling caldrons, and their horses 
are flaming coals!— whir! whir! all by 
wheels!— whizz! whizz! all by steam! 

Traveler (to his dragoman). I wish to 
have the opinion of an unprejudiced Otto- 
man gentleman as to the prospects of our 
English commerce and manufactures. Just 
14 



Chapter I] 



EOTHEN 



ask the Pasha to give me his views on the 
subject. 

Pasha (after having received the communi- 
cation of the dragoman). The ships of the 
English swarm like flies; their printed cali- 
coes cover the whole earth; and by the side 
of their swords the blades of Damascus are 
blades of grass. All India is but an item 
in the ledger-books of the merchants, 
whose lumber-rooms are filled with an- 
cient thrones!— whir! whir! all by wheels! 
—whizz! whizz! all by steam! 

Dragoman. The Pasha compliments the 
cutlery of England, and also the East India 
Company. 

Traveler. The Pasha 's right about the 
cutlery. (I tried my simitar with the 
common officers' swords belonging to our 
fellows at Malta, and they cut it like the 
leaf of a novel.) Well {to the dragoman), 
tell the Pasha I am exceedingly gratified to 
find that he entertains such a high opinion 
of our manufacturing energy, but I should 
like him to know, though, that we have got 
something in England besides that. These 
foreigners are always fancying that we 
have nothing but ships and railways and 
East India Companies. Do just tell the 
Pasha that our rural districts deserve his 
attention, and that even within the last 
15 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter I 



two hundred years there has been an evi- 
dent improvement in the culture of the 
turnip, and if he does not take any interest 
about that, at all events, you can explain 
that we have our virtues in the country— 
that we are a truth-telling people, and, like 
the Osmanlis, are faithful in the perform- 
ance of our promises. Oh, and by the by, 
whilst you are about it, you may as well just 
say, at the end, that the British yeoman is 
still, thank God! the British yeoman. 

Pasha {after hearing the dragoman). It 
is true, it is true. Through all Feringhis- 
tan the English are foremost and best; for 
the Russians are drilled swine, and the 
Germans are sleeping babes, and the Ital- 
ians are the servants of songs, and the 
French are the sons of newspapers, and 
the Greeks are the weavers of lies. But 
the English and the Osmanlis are brothers 
together in righteousness, for the Osman- 
lis believe in one only God, and cleave to 
the Koran, and destroy idols; so do the 
English worship one God, and abominate 
graven images, and tell the truth, and be- 
lieve in a book, and though they drink the 
juice of the grape, yet to say that they 
worship their prophet as God, or to say 
that they are eaters of pork, these are lies 
—lies born of Greeks and nursed by Jews! 
16 



Chapter I] 



EOTHEN 



DRAGOMAN. The Pasha compliments the 
English. 

Traveler (rising). Well, I ? ve had 
enough of this. Tell the Pasha I am 
greatly obliged to him for his hospitality, 
and still more for his kindness in furnish- 
ing me with horses, and say that now I 
must be off. 

Pasha (after hearing the dragoman, and 
standing up on his divan). 1 Proud are the 
sires and blessed are the dams of the 
horses that shall carry his Excellency to 
the end of his prosperous journey. May 
the saddle beneath him glide down to the 
gates of the happy city like a boat swim- 
ming on the third river of Paradise. May 
he sleep the sleep of a child, when his friends 
are around him, and the while that his 
enemies are abroad, may his eyes flame 
red through the darkness— more red than 
the eyes of ten tigers! Farewell! 

Dragoman. The Pasha wishes your Ex- 
cellency a pleasant journey. 

So ends the visit. 

1 That is, if lie stands up at all. Oriental etiquette would not 
warrant his rising, unless his visitor were supposed to he at 
least his equal in point of rank and station. 



2 



17 



CHAPTER 
II 



Turkish traveling. 



IN two or three hours our party was 
ready. The servants, the Tatar, the 
mounted Suridgees, and the baggage- 
horses all together made up a strong caval- 
cade. The accomplished Mysseri, of whom 
you have heard me speak so often, and who 
served me so faithfully throughout my 
Oriental journeys, acted as our inter- 
preter, and was, in fact, the brain of our 
corps. The Tatar, you know, is a govern- 
ment courier properly employed in carrying 
despatches, but also sent with travelers to 
speed them on their way, and answer with 
his head for their safety. The man whose 
head was thus pledged for our precious lives 
was a glorious-looking fellow, with that 
regular and handsome cast of countenance 
which is now characteristic of the Ottoman 
race. 1 His features displayed a good deal 

i The continual marriages of these people with the chosen 
beauties of Georgia and Circassia have overpowered the ori- 
ginal ugliness of their Tatar ancestors. 

18 



Chapter II] 



EOTHEN 



of serene pride, self-respect, fortitude, a 
kind of ingenuous sensuality, and some- 
thing of instinctive wisdom without any 
sharpness of intellect. He had been a 
Janizary,— as I afterwards found,— and he 
still kept up the old pretorian strut which 
used to affright the Christians in former 
times— a strut so comically pompous that 
any close imitation of it, even in the broad- 
est farce, would be looked upon as a very 
rough overacting of the character. It is 
occasioned, in part, by dress and accoutre- 
ments. The weighty bundle of weapons 
carried upon the chest throws back the body 
so as to give it a wonderful portliness, and, 
moreover, the immense masses of clothes 
that swathe his limbs force the wearer in 
walking to swing himself heavily round 
from left to right, and from right to left. 
In truth, this great edifice of woolen and 
cotton and silk and silver and brass and 
steel is not at all fitted for moving on foot. 
It cannot even walk without frightfully dis- 
composing its fair proportions, and as to 
running— our Tatar ran once (it was in or- 
der to pick up a partridge that Methley had 
winged with a pistol-shot), and the attempt 
was one of the funniest misdirections of hu- 
man energy that wondering man ever saw. 
But put him in his stirrups, and then is the 
19 



EOTHEN [Chapter II 



Tatar himself again. There he lives at his 
pleasure, reposing in the tranquillity of that 
true home (the home of his ancestors) which 
the saddle seems to afford him, and draw- 
ing from his pipe the calm pleasures of his 
" own fireside," or else dashing sudden over 
the earth, as though for a moment he felt 
the mouth of a Turkoman steed, and saw 
his own Scythian plains lying boundless 
and open before him. 

It was not till his subordinates had nearly 
completed their preparations for the march 
that our Tatar, " commanding the forces," 
arrived. He came sleek and fresh from the 
bath (for so is the custom of the Ottomans 
when they start upon a journey), and was 
carefully accoutred at every point. Prom 
his thigh to his throat he was laden with 
arms and other implements of a campaign- 
ing life. There is no scarcity of water along 
the whole road from Belgrade to Stamboul, 
but the habits of our Tatar were formed by 
his ancestors, and not by himself, so he 
took good care to see that his leathern 
water-flask was amply charged and properly 
strapped to the saddle along with his blessed 
chibouk. And now at last he has cursed 
the Suridgees, in all proper figures of speech, 
and is ready for a ride of a thousand miles; 
but before he comforts his soul in the 
20 



Chapter II ] 



EOTHEN 



marble baths of Stamboul he will be an- 
other and a lesser man: his sense of re- 
sponsibility, his too strict abstemiousness, 
and his restless energy, disdainful of sleep, 
will have worn him down to a fraction of 
the sleek Moostapha who now leads out 
our party from the gates of Belgrade. 

The Suridgees are the men employed to 
lead the baggage-horses. They are most 
of them Gipsies. Their lot is a sad one. 
They are the last of the human race, and 
all the sins of their superiors— including the 
horses— can safely be visited on them. But 
the wretched look often more picturesque 
than their betters, and though all the world 
despise these poor Suridgees, their tawny 
skins and their grisly beards will gain them 
honorable standing in the foreground of a 
landscape. We had a couple of these fel- 
lows with us, each leading a baggage-horse, 
to the tail of which last another baggage- 
horse was attached. There was a world of 
trouble in persuading the stiff, angular 
portmanteaus of Europe to adapt them- 
selves to their new condition, and sit 
quietly on pack-saddles; but all was right 
at last, and it gladdened my eyes to see our 
little troop file off through the winding 
lanes of the city, and show down brightly 
in the plain beneath. The one of our party 
21 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter II 



most out of keeping with the rest of the 
scene was Methley's Yorkshire servant, 
who always rode doggedly on in his pantry 
jacket, looking out for "gentlemen's seats." 

Methley and I had English saddles, hut I 
think we should have done just as well (I 
should certainly have seen more of the 
country) if we had adopted saddles like 
that of our Tatar, who towered so loftily 
over the scraggy little beast that carried 
him. In taking thought for the East 
whilst in England, I had made one capital 
hit which you must not forget. I had 
brought with me a pair of common spurs; 
these were a great comfort to me through- 
out my horseback travels by keeping up the 
cheerfulness of the many unhappy nags 
that I had to bestride. The angle of that 
Oriental stirrup is a very poor substitute 
for spurs. 

The Ottoman horseman, raised by his 
saddle to a great height above the humble 
level of the back that he bestrides, and using 
a very sharp bit, is able to lift the crest of 
his nag, and force him into a strangely fast 
shuffling walk, the orthodox pace for the 
journey. My comrade and I, using English 
saddles, could not easily keep our beasts up 
to this peculiar amble: besides, we thought 
it a bore to be followed by our attendants 
22 



Chapter II] 



for a thousand miles, and we generally, 
therefore, did duty as the rear-guard of our 
" grand army." We used to walk our horses 
till the party in front had got into the dis- 
tance, and then retrieve the lost ground by 
a gallop. 

We had ridden on for some two or three 
hours, the stir and hustle of our commen- 
cing journey had ceased, the liveliness of 
our little troop had worn off with the de- 
clining day, and the night closed in as we 
entered the great Servian forest. Through 
this our road was to last for more than 
a hundred miles. Endless and endless now 
on either side the tall oaks closed in their 
ranks, and stood gloomily lowering over us, 
as grim as an army of giants with a thou- 
sand years' pay in arrear. One strived with 
listening ear to catch some tidings of that 
forest world within,— some stirring of 
beasts, some night-bird's scream,— but all 
was quite hushed, except the voice of the 
cicalas that peopled every bough, and filled 
the depths of the forest through and 
through with one same hum everlasting 
—more stilling than very silence. 

At first our way was in darkness, but 
after a while the moon got up and touched 
the glittering arms and tawny faces of our 
men with light so pale and mystic that the 
23 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter n 



watchful Tatar felt bound to look out for 
demons, and take proper means for keep- 
ing them off. Forthwith he determined 
that the duty of frightening away our 
ghostly enemies (like every other trouble- 
some work) should fall upon the poor 
Suridgees: they, accordingly, lifted up their 
voices, and burst upon the dreaded stillness 
of the forest with shrieks and dismal howls. 
These precautions were kept up incessantly, 
and were followed by the most complete 
success, for not one demon came near us. 

Long before midnight we reached the 
hamlet in which we were to rest for the 
night. It was made up of about a dozen 
clay huts standing upon a small tract of 
ground hardly won from the forest. The 
peasants living there spoke a Slavonic dia- 
lect, and Mysseri's knowledge of the Rus- 
sian tongue enabled him to talk with them 
freely. We took up our quarters in a square 
room with white walls and an earthen floor, 
quite bare of furniture, and utterly void of 
women. They told us, however, that these 
Servian villagers lived in happy abundance, 
but that they were careful to conceal their 
riches, as well as their wives. 

The burdens unstrapped from the pack- 
saddles very quickly furnished our den. A 
couple of quilts spread upon the floor, with 
24 



Chapter II ] 



EOTHEN 



a carpet-bag at the head of each, became 
capital sofas. Portmanteaus and hat-boxes 
and writing-cases and books and maps and 
gleaming arms soon lay strewed around 
us in pleasant confusion. Mysseri's can- 
teen, too, began to yield up its treasures; 
but we relied upon finding some provisions 
in the village. At first the natives declared 
that their hens were mere old maids, and 
all their cows unmarried; but our Tatar 
swore such a grand, sonorous oath, and 
fingered the hilt of his yataghan with such 
persuasive touch, that the land soon flowed 
with milk, and mountains of eggs arose. 

And soon there was tea before us, with 
all its welcome fragrance; and as we re- 
clined on the floor, we found that a port- 
manteau was just the right height for a 
table. The duty of candlesticks was ably 
performed by a couple of intelligent natives. 
The rest of the villagers stood by the open 
doorway at the lower end of the room, 
and watched our banquet with grave and 
devout attention. 

The first night of your first campaign 
(though you be but a mere peaceful cam- 
paigner) is a glorious time in your life. It 
is so sweet to find one's self free from the 
stale civilization of Europe! Oh, my dear 
ally, when first you spread your carpet in 
25 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter II 



the midst of these Eastern scenes, do think 
for a moment of those your fellow-crea- 
tures that dwell in squares and streets, and 
even (for such is the fate of many!) in 
actual country houses; think of the people 
that are "presenting their compliments," 
and "requesting the honor," and "much 
regretting," of those that are pinioned at 
dinner-tables, or stuck up in ball-rooms, or 
cruelly planted in pews; aye, think of these, 
and so remembering how many poor devils 
are living in a state of utter respectability, 
you will glory the more in your own delight- 
ful escape. 

But, with all its charms, a mud floor (like 
a mercenary match) does certainly promote 
early rising. Long before daybreak we were 
up and had breakfasted. Afterwards there 
was nearly a whole tedious hour to endure, 
whilst the horses were laden by torch-light; 
but this had an end, and then our day's 
journey began. Cloaked and somber, at 
first we made our sullen way through the 
darkness with scarcely one barter of words; 
but soon the genial morn burst down from 
heaven, and stirred the blood so gladly 
through our veins that the very Suridgees, 
with all their troubles, could now look up 
for an instant, and almost seem to believe 
in the temporary goodness of God. 

26 



Chapter II] 



EOTHEN 



The actual movement from one place to 
another, in Europeanized countries, is a pro- 
cess so temporary— it occupies, I mean, so 
small a proportion of the traveler's entire 
time— that his mind remains unsettled so 
long as the wheels are going. He may be 
alive enough to external objects of interest 
and to the crowding ideas which are often 
invited by the excitement of a changing 
scene, but he is still conscious of being in a 
provisional state, and his mind is forever 
recurring to the expected end of his journey. 
His ordinary ways of thought have been in- 
terrupted, and before any new mental habits 
can be formed he is quietly fixed in his hotel. 
It will be otherwise with you when you jour- 
ney in the East. Day after day, perhaps 
week after week and month after month, 
your foot is in the stirrup. To taste the 
cold, breath of the earliest morn, and to lead 
or follow your bright cavalcade till sunset 
through forests and mountain passes, 
through valleys and desolate plains— all 
this becomes your MODE OF life, and you 
ride, eat, drink, and curse the mosquitos, as 
systematically as your friends in England 
eat, drink, and sleep. If you are wise, you 
will not look upon the long period of time 
thus occupied in actual movement as the 
mere gulf dividing you from the end of your 
27 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter II 



journey, but rather as one of those rare and 
plastic seasons of your life from which, per- 
haps, in after times, you may love to date the 
molding of your character— that is, your 
very identity. Once feel this, and you will 
soon grow happy and contented in your 
saddle home. As for me and my comrade, 
however, in this part of our journey we 
often forgot Stamboul, forgot all the Ot- 
toman Empire, and only remembered old 
times. We went back, loitering on the 
banks of the Thames— not grim old Thames 
of "after life," that washes the Parliament 
Houses, and drowns despairing girls, but 
Thames, the "old Eton fellow" that 
wrestled with us in our boyhood till he 
taught us to be stronger than he. We 
bullied Keate, and scoffed at Larrey Miller 
and Okes; we rode along loudly laughing, 
and talked to the grave Servian forest as 
though it were the "Brocas clump." 

Our pace was commonly very slow, for 
the baggage-horses served us for a drag, 
and kept us to a rate of little more than 
five miles in the hour; but now and then, 
and chiefly at night, a spirit of movement 
would suddenly animate the whole party. 
The baggage-horses would be teased into a 
gallop, and when once this was done, there 
would be such a banging of portmanteaus, 
28 



Chapter II] 



EOTHEN 



and such convulsions of carpet-bags upon 
their panting sides, and the Suridgees would 
follow them up with such a hurricane of 
blows and screams and curses, that stop- 
ping or relaxing was scarcely possible. 
Then the rest of us would put our horses 
into a gallop, and so all shouting cheerily 
would hunt and drive the sumpter-beasts 
like a flock of goats, up hill and down dale, 
right on to the end of their journey. 

The distances between our relays of 
horses varied greatly. Some were not more 
than fifteen or twenty miles, but twice, I 
think, we performed a whole day's journey 
of more than sixty miles with the same 
beasts. 

When at last we came out from the for- 
est, our road lay through scenes like those 
of an English park. The greensward, un- 
f enced and left to the free pasture of cattle, 
was dotted with groups of stately trees, and 
here and there darkened over with larger 
masses of wood, that seemed gathered to- 
gether for bounding the domain, and shut- 
ting out some infernal fellow-creature in 
the shape of a newly made squire. In one 
or two spots the hanging copses looked 
down upon a lawn below with such shelter- 
ing mien that, seeing the like in England, 
you would have been tempted almost to ask 
29 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter n 



the name of the spendthrift or the madman 
who had dared to pull down the old hall. 

There are few countries less infested by 
"lions" than the provinces on this part of 
your route. You are not called upon to 
" drop a tear " over the tomb of " the once 
brilliant" anybody, or to pay your "tribute 
of respect" to anything dead or alive; there 
are no Servian or Bulgarian litterateurs with 
whom it would be positively disgraceful not 
to form an acquaintance; you have no star- 
ing, no praising to get through. The only 
public building of any interest that lies 
on the road is of modern date, but is sai'd 
to be a good specimen of Oriental architec- 
ture. It is of a pyramidical shape, and is 
made up of thirty thousand skulls contrib- 
uted by the rebellious Servians in the early 
part (I believe) of this century. I am not 
at all sure of my date, but I fancy it was in 
the year 1806 that the first skull was laid. 
I am ashamed to say that in the darkness 
of the early morning we unknowingly went 
by the neighborhood of this triumph of art, 
and so basely got off from admiring "the 
simple grandeur of the architect's concep- 
tion," and "the exquisite beauty of the 
fretwork." 

There being no " lions," we ought at least 
to have met with a few perils, but the only 
30 



Chapter II] 



EOTHEN 



robbers we saw anything of had been long 
since dead and gone. The poor fellows had 
been impaled upon high poles, and so 
propped up by the transverse spokes be- 
neath them that their skeletons, clothed 
with some white, wax-like remains of flesh, 
still sat up lolling in the sunshine, and list- 
lessly stared without eyes. 

One day it seemed to me that our path 
was a little more rugged than usual, and I 
found that I was deserving for myself the 
title of Sabalkansky, or " Transcender of 
the Balkan." The truth is that, as a mili- 
tary barrier, the Balkan is a fabulous moun- 
tain Such seems to be the view of Major 
Keppell, who looked on it towards the east 
with the eye of a soldier, and certainly, in 
the Sofia Pass, there is no narrow defile and 
no ascent sufficiently difficult to stop, or de- 
lay for a long time, a train of siege artillery. 

Before we reached Adrianople, Methley 
had been seized with we knew not what 
ailment, and when we had taken up our 
quarters in the city, he was cast to the very 
earth by sickness. Adrianople enjoyed an 
English consul, and I felt sure that, in 
Eastern phrase, his house would cease to 
be his house, and would become the house 
of my sick comrade. I should have judged 
rightly under ordinary circumstances, but 
31 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter II 



the leveling plague was abroad, and the 
dread of it had dominion over the consular 
mind. So now (whether dying or not, one 
could hardly tell), upon a quilt stretched 
out along the floor, there lay the best hope 
of an ancient line, without the material aids 
to comfort of even the humblest sort, and 
(sad to say) without the consolation of a 
friend or even a comrade worth having. I 
have a notion that tenderness and pity are 
affections occasioned, in some measure, by 
living within doors. Certainly, at the time 
I speak of, the open-air life which I had 
been leading, or the wayfaring hardships of 
the journey, had so strangely blunted me 
that I felt intolerant of illness, and looked 
down upon my companion as if the poor 
fellow, in falling ill, had betrayed a want of 
spirit! I entertained, too, a most absurd 
idea— an idea that his illness was partly 
affected. You see that I have made a con- 
fession. This I hope— that I may hereafter 
look charitably upon the hard, savage acts 
of peasants and the cruelties of a "brutal" 
soldiery. God knows that I strived to melt 
myself into common charity, and to put on 
a gentleness which I could not feel; but this 
attempt did not cheat the keenness of the 
sufferer. He could not have felt the less 
deserted because that I was with him. 
32 



Chapter II] 



EOTHEN 



We called to aid a solemn Armenian (I 
think he was), half soothsayer, half hakim, 
or doctor, who, all the while counting his 
beads, fixed his eyes steadily upon the pa- 
tient, and then suddenly dealt him a violent 
blow on the chest. Methley bravely dis- 
sembled his pain, for he fancied that the 
blow was meant to try whether or not the 
plague were on him. 

Here was really a sad embarrassment- 
no bed, nothing to offer the invalid, in the 
shape of food, save a piece of thin, tough, 
flexible drab-colored cloth made of flour 
and mill-stones in equal proportions, and 
called by the name of "bread." Then the 
patient, of course, had no "confidence in 
his medical man," and, on the whole, the 
best chance of saving my comrade seemed 
to lie in taking him out of the reach of his 
doctor, and bearing him away to the neigh- 
borhood of some more genial consul. But 
how was this to be done? Methley was 
much too ill to be kept in his saddle, and 
wheel-carriages, as means of traveling, were 
unknown. There is, however, such a thing 
as an " araba," a vehicle drawn by oxen, in 
which the wives of a rich man are some- 
times dragged four or five miles over the 
grass by way of recreation. The carriage 
is rudely framed, but you recognize in the 
3 33 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter n 



simple grandeur of its design a likeness to 
things majestic. In short, if your carpen- 
ter's son were to make a "Lord Mayor's 
coach" for little Amy, he would build a 
carriage very much in the style of a Turk- 
ish araba. No one had ever heard of horses 
being used for drawing a carriage in this 
part of the world, but necessity is the 
mother of innovation as well as of inven- 
tion. I was fully justified, I think, in argu- 
ing that there were numerous instances of 
horses being used for that purpose in our 
own country; that the laws of nature are 
uniform in their operation over all the world 
(except Ireland); that that which was true 
in Piccadilly must be true in Adrianople; 
that the matter could not fairly be treated 
as an ecclesiastical question, for that the 
circumstance of Methley's going on to 
Stamboul in an araba drawn by horses, 
when calmly and dispassionately con- 
sidered, would appear to be perfectly con- 
sistent with the maintenance of the 
Mohammedan religion, as by law estab- 
lished. Thus poor, dear, patient Reason 
would have fought her slow battle against 
Asiatic prejudice, and I am convinced that 
she would have established the possibility 
(and, perhaps, even the propriety) of har- 
nessing horses in a hundred and fifty years; 
34 



Chapter II] 



EOTHEN 



but, in the meantime, Mysseri, well seconded 
by our Tatar, contrived to bring the con- 
troversy to a premature end by having the 
horses put to. 

It was a sore thing for me to see my poor 
comrade brought to this, for, young though 
he was, he was a veteran in travel. When 
scarcely yet of age, he had invaded India 
from the frontiers of Russia, and ^that so 
swiftly that, measuring by the time of his 
flight, the broad dominions of the king of 
kings were shriveled up to a dukedom; and 
now, poor fellow, he was to be poked into 
an araba, like a Georgian girl ! He suffered 
greatly, for there were no springs for the 
carriage, and no road for the wheels, and 
so the concern jolted on over the open 
country, with such twists and jerks and 
jumps as might almost dislocate the supple 
tongue of Satan. 

All day the patient kept himself shut up 
within the latticework of the araba, and I 
could hardly know how he was faring until 
the end of the day's journey, when I found 
that he was not worse, and was buoyed up 
with the hope of some day reaching Con- 
stantinople. 

I was always conning over my maps, and 
fancied that I knew pretty well my line, 
but after Adrianople I had made more 
35 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter II 



southing than I knew for, and it was with 
unbelieving wonder and delight that I came 
suddenly upon the shore of the sea. A lit- 
tle while, and its gentle billows were flow- 
ing beneath the hoofs of my beast. But the 
hearing of the ripple was not enough com- 
munion, and the seeing of the blue Pro- 
pontis was not to know and possess it— I 
must needs plunge into its depth, and 
quench my longing love in the palpable 
waves; and so when old Moostapha (de- 
fender against demons) looked round for 
his charge, he saw with horror and dismay 
that he for whose life his own life stood 
pledged, was possessed of some devil who 
had driven him down into the sea— that the 
rider and the steed had vanished from 
earth, and that out among the waves was 
the gasping crest of a post-horse and the 
ghostly head of the Englishman moving 
upon the face of the waters. 

We started very early indeed on the last 
day of our journey, and from the moment 
of being off until we gained the shelter of 
the imperial walls, we were struggling face 
to face with an icy storm that swept right 
down from the steppes of Tartary, keen, 
fierce, and steady as a northern conqueror. 
Methley's servant, who was the greatest 
sufferer, kept his saddle until we reached 
36 



Chapter II] 



EOTHEN 



Stamboul, but was then found to be quite 
benumbed in limbs, and his brain was so 
much affected that when he was lifted 
from his horse, he fell away in a state of 
unconsciousness, the first stage of a danger- 
ous fever. 

Our Tatar, worn down by care and toil, 
and carrying seven heavens full of water 
in his manifold jackets and shawls, was a 
mere weak and vapid dilution of the sleek 
Moostapha who scarce more than one fort- 
night before came out like a bridegroom 
from his chamber to take the command of 
our party. 

Mysseri seemed somewhat over-wearied, 
but he had lost none of his strangely quiet 
energy. He wore a grave look, however, 
for he now had learnt that the plague 
was prevailing at Constantinople, and he 
was fearing that our two sick men, and the 
miserable looks of our whole party, might 
make us unwelcome at Pera. 

We crossed the Golden Horn in a caique. 
As soon as we had landed, some woebegone- 
looking fellows were got together and laden 
with our baggage. Then on we went, drip- 
ping and sloshing, and looking very like men 
that had been turned back by the Royal Hu- 
mane Society for being incurably drowned. 
Supporting our sick, we climbed up shelving 
37 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter II 



steps and threaded many windings, and at 
last came up into the main street of Pera, 
humbly hoping that we might not be judged 
guilty of the plague, and so be cast back with 
horror from the doors of the shuddering 
Christians. 

Such was the condition of the little troop, 
which fifteen days before had filed away so 
gaily from the gates of Belgrade. A couple 
of fevers and a northeasterly storm had 
thoroughly spoiled our looks. 

The interest of Mysseri with the house of 
Giuseppini was too powerful to be denied, 
and at once, though not without fear and 
trembling, we were admitted as guests. 



3S 



CHAPTER 
III 



Constantinople. 



EVEN if we don't take a part in the 
chant about "Mosques and Mina- 
rets," we can still yield praises to 
Stamboul. We can chant about the har- 
bor? we can say and sing that nowhere else 
does the sea come so home to a city; there 
are no pebbly shores, no sand-bars, no slimy 
river-beds, no black canals, no locks, nor 
docks to divide the very heart of the place 
from the deep waters; if, being in the noisi- 
est mart of Stamboul, you would stroll to 
the quiet side of the way amidst those cy- 
presses opposite, you will cross the fathom- 
less Bosporus; if you would go from your 
hotel to the bazaars, you must pass by the 
bright blue pathway of the Golden Horn, 
that can carry a thousand sail of the line. 
You are accustomed to the gondolas that 
glide among the palaces of St. Mark, but 
here at Stamboul it is a hundred-and-twen- 
ty-gun ship that meets you in the street. 
39 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter III 



Venice strains out from the steadfast land, 
and in old times would send forth the Chief 
of the State to woo and wed the reluctant 
sea; but the stormy bride of the Doge is 
the bowing slave of the Sultan; she comes 
to his feet with the treasures of the world; 
she bears him from palace to palace; by- 
some unfailing witchcraft, she entices the 
breezes to follow her, 1 and fan the pale 
cheek of her lord; she lifts his armed navies 
to the very gates of his garden; she watches 
the walls of his serail; she stifles the in- 
trigues of his ministers; she quiets the 
scandals of his court; she extinguishes his 
rivals, and hushes his naughty wives all one 
by one. So vast are the wonders of the deep ! 

All the while that I stayed at Constanti- 
nople the plague was prevailing, but not 
with any violence; its presence, however, 
lent a mysterious and exciting though not 
very pleasant interest to my first know- 
ledge of a great Oriental city; it gave tone 
and color to all I saw and all I felt— a tone 
and a color somber enough, but true, and 
well befitting the dreary monuments of past 
power and splendor. With all that is most 
truly Oriental in its character the plague 

1 There is almost always a breeze, either from the Marmora or 
from the Black Sea, that passes along the course of the 
Bosporous. 

40 



Chapter III] 



EOTHEN 



is associated; it dwells with the faithful in 
the holiest quarters of their city. The coats 
and the hats of Pera are held to be nearly 
as innocent of infection as they are ugly in 
shape and fashion; but the rich furs and the 
costly shawls, the broidered slippers and 
the gold-laden saddle-cloths, the fragrance 
of burning aloes and the rich aroma of 
patchouli— these are the signs that mark 
the familiar home of plague. You go out 
from your queenly London, the center of 
the greatest and strongest amongst all 
earthly dominions— you go out thence and 
travel on to the capital of an Eastern prince; 
you find but a waning power and a faded 
splendor that inclines you to laugh and 
mock; but let the infernal angel of plague 
beat hand, and he, more mighty than armies, 
more terrible than Suleyman in his glory, 
can restore such pomp and majesty to the 
weakness of the imperial city that if, when 
HE is ther e,you must still go prying amongst 
the shades of this dead empire, at least you 
will tread the path with seemly reverence 
and awe. 

It is the firm faith of almost all the Eu- 
ropeans living in the East that plague is 
conveyed by the touch of infected sub- 
stances, and that the deadly atoms espe- 
cially lurk in all kinds of clothes and furs. 
41 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter III 



It is held safer to breathe the same air with 
a man sick of the plague, and even to come 
in contact with his skin, than to he touched 
by the smallest particle of woolen or of 
thread which may have been within the 
reach of possible infection. If this be a 
right notion, the spread of the malady must 
be materially aided by the observance of a 
custom prevailing amongst the people of 
Stamboul. It is this: when an Osmanli dies, 
one of his dresses is cut up, and a small 
piece of it is sent to each of his friends as a 
memorial of the departed— a fatal present, 
according to the opinion of the Franks, for 
it too often forces the living not merely to 
remember the dead man, but to follow and 
bear him company. 

The Europeans, during the prevalence of 
the plague, if they are forced to venture 
into the streets, will carefully avoid the 
touch of every human being whom they 
pass; their conduct in this respect shows 
them strongly in contrast with the "true 
believers"; the Moslem stalks on serenely, 
as though he were under the eye of his 
God, and were "equal to either fate"; the 
Franks go crouching and slinking from 
death, and some (those chiefly of French 
extraction) will fondly strive to fence out 
destiny with shining capes of oilskin. 

42 



Chapter III] 



EOTHEN 



For some time you may manage by great 
care to thread your way through the streets 
of Stamboul without incurring contact, for 
the Turks, though scornful of the terrors 
felt by the Franks, are generally very cour- 
teous in yielding to that which they hold 
to be a useless and impious precaution, and 
will let you pass safe if they can. It is im- 
possible, however, that your immunity can 
last for any length of time if you move 
about much through the narrow streets 
and lanes of a crowded city. 

As for me, I soon got "compromised." 
After one day of rest, the prayers of my 
hostess began to lose their power of keep- 
ing me from the pestilent side of the Golden 
Horn. Faithfully promising to shun the 
touch of all imaginable substances, how- 
ever enticing, I set off very cautiously, and 
held my way uncompromised till I reached 
the water's edge; but before my caique was 
quite ready some rueful-looking fellows 
came rapidly shambling down the steps with 
a plague-stricken corpse, which they were 
going to bury amongst the faithful on the 
other side of the water. I contrived to be so 
much in the way of this brisk funeral that I 
was not only touched by the men bearing 
the body, but also, I believe, by the foot of 
the dead man, as it hung lolling out of the 
43 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter III 



bier. This accident gave me such a strong 
interest in denying the soundness of the con- 
tagion theory that I did in fact deny and 
repudiate it altogether; and from that time, 
acting upon my own convenient view of the 
matter, I went wherever I chose, without 
taking any serious pains to avoid a touch. 
It seems to me now very likely that the 
Europeans are right, and that the plague 
may be really conveyed by contagion; but 
during the whole time of my remaining in 
the East my views on this subject more 
nearly approached to those of the fatalists; 
and so, when afterwards the plague of 
Egypt came dealing his blows around me, 
I was able to live amongst the dying with- 
out that alarm and anxiety which would in- 
evitably have pressed upon my mind if I 
had allowed myself to believe that every 
passing touch was really a probable death- 
stroke. 

And perhaps, as you make your difficult 
way through a steep and narrow alley shut 
in between blank walls, and little frequented 
by passers, you meet one of those coffin- 
shaped bundles of white linen that implies 
an Ottoman lady. Painfully struggling 
against the obstacles to progression inter- 
posed by the many folds of her clumsy dra- 
pery, by her big mud-boots, and especially by 
44 



Chapter III] 



EOTHEN 



her two pairs of slippers, she works her 
way on full awkwardly enough; but yet 
there is something of womanly conscious- 
ness in the very labor and effort with which 
she tugs and lifts the burden of her charms; 
she is closely followed by her women slaves. 
Of her very self you see nothing except the 
dark, luminous eyes that stare against your 
face, and the tips of the painted fingers de- 
pending like rose-buds from out of the blank 
bastions of the fortress. She turns, and 
turns again, and carefully glances around 
her on all sides to see that she is safe from 
the eyes of Mussulmans, and then suddenly 
withdrawing the yashmak, 1 she shines upon 
your heart and soul with all the pomp and 
might of her beauty. And this, it is not the 
light, changeful grace that leaves you to 
doubt whether you have fallen in love with 
a body or only a soul; it is the beauty that 
dwells secure in the perfectness of hard, 
downright outlines, and in the glow of gen- 
erous color. There is fire, though, too — high 
courage and fire enough in the untamed 
mind, or spirit, or whatever it is, which 
drives the breath of pride through those 
scarcely parted lips. 

1 The yashmak, you know, is not a mere semi-transparent 
veil, but rather a good substantial petticoat applied to the 
face ; it thoroughly conceals all the features except the eyes ; 
the way of withdrawing it is by pulling it down. 

45 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter m 



You smile at pretty women; you turn 
pale before the beauty that is great enough 
to have dominion over you. She sees, and 
exults in your giddiness; she sees, and 
smiles; then presently, with a sudden move- 
ment, she lays her blushing fingers upon 
your arm, and cries out: " Yumourdjak! " 
("Plague!" meaning, "There is a present of 
the plague for you! ") This is her notion of 
a witticism. It is a very old piece of fun, no 
doubt— quite an Oriental Joe Miller; but 
the Turks are fondly attached, not only to 
the institutions, but also to the jokes of 
their ancestors; so the lady's silvery laugh 
rings joyously in your ears, and the mirth 
of her women is boisterous and fresh, as 
though the bright idea of giving the plague 
to a Christian had newly lit upon the 
earth. 

Methley began to rally very soon after 
we had reached Constantinople, but there 
seemed at first to be no chance of his re- 
gaining strength enough for traveling dur- 
ing the winter, and I determined to stay 
with my comrade until he had quite recov- 
ered; so I bought me a horse, and a pipe of 
tranquillity, 1 and took a Turkish phrase- 

1 The 11 pipe of tranquillity " is a chibouk too long to be con- 
veniently carried on a journey ; the possession of it therefore 
implies that its owner is stationary, or at all events that he is 
enjoying a long repose from travel. 

46 



Chapter III] 



master. I troubled myself a great deal with 
the Turkish tongue, and gained at last some 
knowledge of its structure. It is enriched, 
perhaps overladen, with Persian and Arabic 
words imported into the language chiefly for 
the purpose of representing sentiments and 
religious dogmas, and terms of art and lux- 
ury, entirely unknown to the Tatar ances- 
tors of the present Osmanlis; but the body 
and the spirit of the old tongue are yet alive, 
and the smooth words of the shopkeeper at 
Constantinople can still carry understand- 
ing to the ears of the untamed millions who 
rove over the plains of northern Asia. The 
structure of the language, especially in its 
more lengthy sentences, is very like to the 
Latin; the subject-matters are slowly and 
patiently enumerated, without disclosing 
the purpose of the speaker until he reaches 
the end of his sentence, and then at last 
there comes the clenching word which gives 
a meaning and connection to all that has 
gone before. If you listen at all to speak- 
ing of this kind, your attention, rather than 
be suffered to flag, must grow more and 
more lively as the phrase marches on. 

The Osmanlis speak well. In countries 
civilized according to the European plan, 
the work of trying to persuade tribunals is 
almost all performed by a set of men who 
47 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter III 



seldom do anything else; but in Turkey this 
division of labor has never taken place, and 
every man is his own advocate. The impor- 
tance of the rhetorical art is immense, for a 
bad speech may endanger the property of the 
speaker, as well as the soles of his feet and 
the free enjoyment of his throat. So it re- 
sults that most of the Turks whom one sees 
have a lawyer-like habit of speaking con- 
nectedly and at length. Even the treaties 
continually going on at the bazaar for the 
buying and selling of the merest trifles are 
carried on by speechifying rather than by 
mere colloquies, and the eternal uncertainty 
as to the market value of things in constant 
sale gives room enough for discussion. The 
seller is forever demanding a price im- 
mensely beyond that for which he sells at 
last, and so occasions unspeakable disgust in 
many Englishmen, who cannot see why an 
honest dealer should ask more for his goods 
than he will really take. The truth is, how- 
ever, that an ordinary tradesman of Con- 
stantinople has no other way of finding out 
the fair market value of his property. His 
difficulty is easily shown by comparing the 
mechanism of the commercial system in 
Turkey with that of our own people. In 
England, or in any other great mercantile 
country, the bulk of the things bought and 
48 



Chapter III] 



EOTHEN 



sold goes through the hands of a wholesale 
dealer, and it is he who higgles and bargains 
with an entire nation of purchasers, by en- 
tering into treaty with retail sellers. The 
labor of making a few large contracts is suf- 
ficient to give a clue for finding the fair 
market value of the goods sold throughout 
the country. But in Turkey, from the primi- 
tive habits of the people, and partly from the 
absence of great capital and great credit, the 
importing merchant, the warehouseman, 
the wholesale dealer, the retail dealer, and 
the shopman, are all one person. Old Moos- 
tapha,or Abdallah,or Hadgi Mohammed wad- 
dles up from the water's edge with a small 
packet of merchandise, which he has bought 
out of a Greek brigantine, and when at last 
he has reached his nook in the bazaar, he 
puts his goods before the counter, and him- 
self upon it; then laying fire to his chi- 
bouk, he "sits in permanence," and pa- 
tiently waits to obtain "the best price 
that can be got in an open market." This 
is his fair right as a seller, but he has no 
means of finding out what that best price is, 
except by actual experiment. He cannot 
know the intensity of the demand, or the 
abundance of the supply, otherwise than by 
the offers which may be made for his little 
bundle of goods; so he begins by asking a 
4 49 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter III 



perfectly hopeless price, and then descends 
the ladder until he meets a purchaser, 
forever 

" striving to attain 
By shadowing out the unattainable." 

This is the struggle which creates the con- 
tinual occasion for debate. The vender, per- 
ceiving that the unfolded merchandise has 
caught the eye of a possible purchaser, com- 
mences his opening speech. He covers his 
bristling broadcloths and his meager silks 
with the golden broidery of Oriental praises, 
and as he talks, along with the slow and 
graceful waving of his arms, he lifts his un- 
dulating periods, upholds and poises them 
well till they have gathered their weight and 
their strength, and then hurls them bodily 
forward, with grave, momentous swing. The 
possible purchaser listens to the whole 
speech with deep and serious attention; 
but when it is over, his turn arrives. He 
elaborately endeavors to show why he 
ought not to buy the things at a price 
twenty times larger than their value. By- 
standers, attracted to the debate, take a 
part in it as independent members; the 
vender is heard in reply, and, coming down 
with his price, furnishes the materials for a 
new debate. Sometimes, however, the dealer, 
50 



Chapter III] 



EOTHEN 



if he is a very pious Mussulman and suffi- 
ciently rich to hold back his ware, will take 
a more dignified part, maintaining a kind of 
judicial gravity, and receiving the appli- 
cants who come to his stall as if they were 
rather suitors than customers. He will 
quietly hear to the end some long speech 
that concludes with an offer, and will an- 
swer it all with that bold monosyllable 
"Yok," which means distinctly "No." 

I caught one glimpse of the old heathen 
world. My habits of studying military sub- 
jects had been hardening my heart against 
poetry. Forever staring at the flames of 
battle, I had blinded myself to the lesser 
and finer lights that are shed from the 
imaginations of men. In my reading at 
this time, I delighted to follow from out of 
Arabian sands the feet of the armed be- 
lievers, and to stand in the broad, manifest 
storm- tract of Tatar devastation; and thus, 
though surrounded at Constantinople by 
scenes of much interest to the "classical 
scholar," I had cast aside their associations 
like an old Greek grammar, and turned my 
face to the " shining Orient," forgetful of old 
Greece and all the pure wealth she left 
to this matter-of-fact-ridden world. But 
it happened to me one day to mount the 
high grounds overhanging the streets of 
51 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter III 



Pera. I sated my eyes with the pomps of 
the city, and its crowded waters, and then 
I looked over where Scutari lay, half veiled 
in her mournful cypresses; I looked yet 
farther and higher, and saw in the heavens 
a silvery cloud that stood fast and still 
against the breeze; it was pure and dazzling 
white as might be the veil of Cytherea, yet 
touched with such fire as though, from be- 
neath, the loving eyes of an immortal were 
shining through and through. I knew the 
bearing, but had enormously misjudged its 
distance and underrated its height, and so 
it was as a sign and a testimony— almost 
as a call from the neglected gods— that now 
I saw and acknowledged the snowy crown 
of the Mysian Olympus. 



52 



CHAPTER 
IV 



The Troad. 




ETHLEY recovered almost sud- 



i*I through the Troad together. 

My comrade was a capital Grecian; it is 
true that his singular mind so ordered and 
disposed his classic lore as to impress it 
with something of an original and barbarous 
character— with an almost Gothic quaint- 
ness more properly belonging to a rich na- 
tive ballad than to the poetry of Hellas. 
There was a certain impropriety in his 
knowing so much Greek— an unfitness in 
the idea of marble fauns and satyrs, and 
even Olympian gods, lugged in under the 
oaken roof and the painted light of an odd 
old Norman hall. But Methley, abounding 
in Homer, really loved him (as I believe) in 
all truth, without whim or fancy; moreover, 
he had a good deal of the practical sagacity 

"of a Yorkshireman hippodamoio," 

and this enabled him to apply his knowledge 

53 



determined to go 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter IV 



with much more tact than is usually shown 
by people so learned as he. 

I, too, loved Homer, but not with a schol- 
ar's love. The most humble and pious 
among women was yet so proud a mother 
that she could teach her first-born son, no 
Watts's hymns, no collects for the day: she 
could teach him in earliest childhood no 
less than this— to find a home in his sad- 
dle, and to love old Homer and all that 
Homer sung. True it is that the Greek 
was ingeniously rendered into English,— the 
English of Pope,— but not even a mesh like 
that can screen an earnest child from the 
fire of Homer's battles. 

I pored over the Odyssey as over a story- 
book, hoping and fearing for the hero 
whom yet I partly scorned. But the Iliad 
—line by line I clasped it to my brain with 
reverence as well as with love. As an old 
woman deeply trustful sits reading her 
Bible because of the world to come, so, as 
though it would fit me for the coming strife 
of this temporal world, I read and read the 
Iliad. Even outwardly it was not like other 
books; it was throned in towering folios. 
There was a preface or dissertation printed 
in type still more majestic than the rest of 
the book; this I read, but not till my en- 
thusiasm for the Iliad had already run high. 
54 



Chapter IV] 



EOTHEN 



The writer, compiling the opinions of many 
men, and chiefly of the ancients, set forth, 
I know not how quaintly, that the Iliad was 
all in all to the human race— that it was 
history, poetry, revelation; that the works 
of men's hands were folly and vanity, and 
would pass away like the dreams of a child, 
but that the kingdom of Homer would en- 
dure for ever and ever. 

I assented with all my soul. I read, and 
still read; I came to know Homer. A 
learned commentator knows something of 
the Greeks in the same sense as an oil-and- 
color man may be said to know something 
of painting; but take an untamed child and 
leave him alone for twelve months with 
any translation of Homer, and he will be 
nearer by twenty centuries to the spirit of 
old Greece; he does not stop in the ninth 
year of the siege to admire this or that 
group of words; he has no books in his tent: 
but he shares in vital counsels with the 
" King of men," and knows the inmost souls 
of the impending gods. How profanely he 
exults over the powers divine when they 
are taught to dread the prowess of mortals! 
and most of all, how he rejoices when the 
God of War flies howling from the spear of 
Diomed, and mounts into heaven for safety! 
Then, the beautiful episode of the sixth 
55 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter IV 



book ! The way to feel this is not to go cast- 
ing about and learning from pastors and 
masters how best to admire it. The impa- 
tient child is not grubbing for beauties, but 
pushing the siege; the women vex him with 
their delays and their talking; the mention 
of the nurse is personal, and little sympathy 
has he for the child that is young enough to 
be frightened at the nodding plume of a hel- 
met: but all the while that he thus chafes 
at the pausing of the action, the strong 
vertical light of Homer's poetry is blazing 
so full upon the people and things of the 
Iliad that soon, to the eyes of the child, 
they grow familiar as his mother's shawl; 
yet of this great gain he is unconscious, 
and on he goes, vengefully thirsting for the 
best blood of Troy, and never remitting 
his fierceness till almost suddenly it is 
changed for sorrow— the new and generous 
sorrow that he learns to feel when the 
noblest of all his foes lies sadly dying at the 
Scaaan gate. 

Heroic days are these, but the dark ages 
of school-boy life come closing over them. 
I suppose it 's all right in the end, yet, at 
first sight it does seem a sad intellectual 
fall from your mother's dressing-room to a 
buzzing school. You feel so keenly the 
delights of early knowledge! You form 
56 



Chapter IV] 



EOTHEN 



strange, mystic friendships with the mere 
names of mountains and seas and continents 
and mighty rivers; you learn the ways of the 
planets, and transcend their narrow limits, 
and ask for the end of space; you vex the 
electric cylinder till it yields you, for your 
toy to play with, that subtle fire in which 
our earth was forged; you know of the na- 
tions that have towered high in the world, 
and the lives of the men who have saved 
whole empires from oblivion. What more 
will you ever learn ? Yet the dismal change is 
ordained, and then, thin meager Latin (the 
same for everybody), with small shreds and 
patches of Greek, is thrown like a pauper's 
pall over all your early lore; instead of sweet 
knowledge, vile, monkish, doggerel gram- 
mars and graduses, dictionaries and lexi- 
cons, and horrible odds and ends of dead 
languages are given you for your portion, 
and down you fall from Roman story to a 
three-inch scrap of "Scriptores Romani," 
from Greek poetry, down, down to the cold 
rations of " Poetae Graeci," cut up by com- 
mentators and served out by schoolmasters! 

It was not the recollection of school nor 
college learning, but the rapturous and 
earnest reading of my childhood, which 
made me bend forward so longingly to the 
plains of Troy. 

57 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter IV 



Away from our people and our horses, 
Methley and I went loitering along by the 
willowy banks of a stream that crept in 
quietness through the low, even plain. 
There was no stir of weather overhead, no 
sound of rural labor, no sign of life in the 
land, but all the earth was dead and still, 
as though it had lain for thrice a thousand 
years under the leaden gloom of one un- 
broken Sabbath. 

Softly and sadly the poor, dumb, patient 
stream went winding and winding along 
through its shifting pathway; in some places 
its waters were parted, and then again, lower 
down, they would meet once more. I could 
see that the stream from year to year was 
finding itself new channels, and flowed no 
longer in its ancient track; but I knew that 
the springs which fed it were high on Ida— 
the springs of Simois and Scamander! 

It was coldly and thanklessly, and with 
vacant, unsatisfied eyes, that I watched the 
slow coming and the gliding away of the 
waters; I tell myself now, as a profane fact, 
that I did indeed stand by that river (Meth- 
ley gathered some seeds from the bushes 
that grew there), but since that I am away 
from his banks, "divine Scamander" has 
recovered the proper mystery belonging to 
him as an unseen deity: a kind of indis- 
58 



Chapter IV] 



EOTHEN 



tinctness, like that which belongs to far 
antiquity, has spread itself over my memory 
of the winding stream that I saw with these 
very eyes. One's mind regains in absence 
that dominion over earthly things which 
has been shaken by their rude contact; you 
force yourself hardily into the material 
presence of a mountain or a river whose 
name belongs to poetry and ancient religion, 
rather than to the external world; your 
feelings, wound up and kept ready for some 
sort of half -expected rapture, are chilled 
and borne down for the time under all this 
load of real earth and water; but let these 
once pass out of sight, and then again the 
old fanciful notions are restored, and the 
mere realities which you have just been 
looking at are thrown back so far into dis- 
tance that the very event of your intrusion 
upon such scenes begins to look dim and 
uncertain, as though it belonged to my- 
thology. 

It is not over the plain before Troy that 
the river now flows; its waters have edged 
away far towards the north since the day 
that "divine Scamander" (whom the gods 
call Xanthus) went down to do battle for 
Ilion, "with Mars, and Phoebus, and Latona, 
and Diana glorying in her arrows, and 
Venus, the lover of smiles." 

59 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter IV 



And now, when I was vexed at the migra- 
tion of Scamander, and the total loss, or ab- 
sorption of poor, dear Simois, how happily 
Methley reminded me that Homer himself 
had warned us of some such changes ! The 
besiegers, in beginning their wall, had neg- 
lected the hecatombs due to the gods, and 
so, after the fall of Troy, Apollo turned the 
paths of the rivers that flow from Ida, and 
sent them flooding over the wall till all the 
beach was smooth and free from the un- 
hallowed works of the Greeks. It is true I 
see now, on looking to the passage, that 
Neptune, when the work of destruction was 
done, turned back the rivers to their an- 
cient ways : 

. . . TZOZrj.p.ODC, ETpS'yE Vtzzhc/.'. 

Kap 5 poov Tj-sp r.ooohzv lev v.oAAippoov 6oa>p. 

But their old channels passing through that 
light, pervious soil would have been lost in 
the nine days' flood, and perhaps the god, 
when he willed to bring back the rivers to 
their ancient beds, may have done his work 
but ill; it is easier, they say, to destroy than 
it is to restore. 

We took to our horses again, and went 
southward towards the very plain between 
Troy and the tents of the Greeks, but we 
rode by a line at some distance from the 
60 



Chapter IV] 



EOTHEN 



shore. Whether it was that the lay of the 
ground hindered my view towards the sea, or 
that I was all intent upon Ida, or whether 
my mind was in vacancy, or whether, as is 
most like, I had strayed from the Dardan 
plains all back to gentle England, there is 
now no knowing nor caring, but it was— 
not quite suddenly, indeed, but rather, as it 
were, in the swelling and falling of a single 
wave, that the reality of that very sea 
view which had bounded the sight of the 
Greeks now visibly acceded to me and 
rolled full in upon my brain. Conceive how 
deeply that eternal coast-line, that fixed 
horizon, those island rocks, must have 
graven their images upon the minds of the 
Grecian warriors by the time that they had 
reached the ninth year of the siege! Con- 
ceive the strength and the fanciful beauty 
of the speeches with which a whole army 
of imagining men must have told their 
weariness, and how the sauntering chiefs 
must have whelmed that daily, daily scene 
with their deep Ionian curses! 

And now it was that my eyes were greeted 
with a delightful surprise. Whilst we were 
at Constantinople, Methley and I had pored 
over the map together; we agreed that 
whatever may have been the exact site of 
Troy, the Grecian camp must have been 
61 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter IV 



nearly opposite to the space betwixt the 
islands of Imbros and Tenedos: 

But Methley reminded me of a passage in 
the Iliad in which Neptune is represented as 
looking at the scene of action before Ilion 
from above the island of Samothrace. Now, 
Samothrace, according to the map, appeared 
to be not only out of all seeing distance from 
the Troad, but to be entirely shut out from 
it by the intervening Imbros, a larger island 
which stretches its length right athwart the 
line of sight from Samothrace to Troy. 
Piously allowing that the dread Commo tor of 
our globe might have seen all mortal doings, 
even from the depths of his own cerulean 
kingdom, I still felt that if a station were 
to be chosen from which to see the fight, 
old Homer, so material in his ways of 
thought, so averse from all haziness and 
overreaching, would have meant to give the 
god for his station some spot within reach 
of men's eyes from the plains of Troy. I 
think that this testing of the poet's words 
by map and compass may have shaken a 
little of my faith in the completeness of his 
knowledge. Well, now I had come; there 
to the south was Tenedos, and here at my 
side was Imbros, all right and according to 
62 



Chapter IV] 



EOTHEN 



the map; but aloft over Imbros, aloft in a 
far-away heaven, was Samothrace, the 
watch-tower of Neptune! 

So Homer had appointed it, and so it was; 
the map was correct enough, but could not, 
like Homer, convey the whole truth. Thus 
vain and false are the mere human sur- 
mises and doubts which clash with Homeric 
writ! 

Nobody whose mind had not been reduced 
to the most deplorably logical condition 
could look upon this beautiful congruity 
betwixt the Iliad and the material world, 
and yet bear to suppose that the poet may 
have learned the features of the coast from 
mere hearsay; now, then, I believed; now I 
knew that Homer had passed along here— 
that this vision of Samothrace overtower- 
ing the nearer island was common to him 
and to me. 

After a journey of some few days by the 
route of Adramiti and Pergamo, we reached 
Smyrna. The letters which Methley here 
received obliged him to return to England. 



63 



CHAPTER 
V 



Infidel Smyrna. 



SMYRNA, or Giaour Izmir, "Infidel 
Smyrna " as the Mussulmans call it, is 
the main point of commercial contact 
betwixt Europe and Asia; you are there sur- 
rounded by the people and the confused 
customs of many and various nations; you 
see the fussy European adopting the East 
and calming his restlessness with the long 
Turkish pipe of tranquillity; you see Jews 
offering services and receiving blows; 1 on 
one side you have a fellow whose dress and 

1 The Jews of Smyrna are poor, and having little merchan- 
dise of their own to dispose of, they are sadly importunate in 
offering their services as intermediaries. Their troublesome 
conduct has led to the custom of beating them in the open 
streets. It is usual for Europeans to carry long sticks with 
them, for the express purpose of keeping off the chosen peo- 
ple. I always felt ashamed to strike the poor fellows myself, 
but I confess to the amusement with which I Avitnessed the 
observance of this custom by other people. The Jew seldom 
got hurt much, for he was always expecting the blow, and 
was ready to recede from it the moment it came ; one could 
not help being rather gratified at seeing hrhi bound away so 
nimbly, with his long robes floating out in the air, and then 
again wheel round, and return with fresh importunities. 

64 



Chapter V] 



EOTHEN 



beard would give you a good idea of the 
true Oriental if it were not for the gohe- 
mouche expression of countenance with 
which he is swallowing an article in a 
French newspaper, and there, just by, is 
a genuine Osmanli, smoking away with all 
the majesty of a Sultan; but before you 
have time to admire sufficiently his tran- 
quil dignity and his soft Asiatic repose, the 
poor old fellow is ruthlessly "run down 99 by 
an English midshipman who has set sail 
on a Smyrna hack. Such are the incongru- 
ities of the "infidel city" at ordinary times; 
but when I was there our friend Carrigaholt 
had imported himself and his oddities, as 
an accession to the other and inferior won- 
ders of Smyrna. 

I was sitting alone in my room one day, 
at Constantinople, when I heard Methley 
approaching my door with shouts of 
laughter and welcome, and presently I 
recognized that peculiar cry by which our 
friend Carrigaholt expresses his emotions. 
He soon explained to us the final causes by 
which the Fates had worked out their won- 
derful purpose of bringing him to Constan- 
tinople. He was always, you know, very 
fond of sailing; but he had got into such 
sad scrapes (including, I think, a lawsuit) 
on account of his last yacht that he took 

5 65 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter V 



it into his head to have a cruise in a mer- 
chant vessel. So he went to Liverpool and 
looked through the craft lying ready to sail 
till he found a smart schooner that per- 
fectly suited his taste. The destination of 
the vessel was the last thing he thought of, 
and when he was told that she was bound 
for Constantinople, he merely assented to 
that as a part of the arrangement to which 
he had no objection. As soon as the vessel 
had sailed, the hapless passenger discovered 
that his skipper carried on board an enor- 
mous wife with an inquiring mind and an 
irresistible tendency to impart her opinions. 
She looked upon her guest as upon a piece of 
waste intellect .'that ought to be carefully 
tilled. She tilled him accordingly. If the 
Dons at Oxford could have seen poor Car- 
rigaholt thus absolutely "attending lec- 
tures" in the Bay of Biscay, they would 
surely have thought him sufficiently pun- 
ished for all the wrongs he did them whilst 
he was preparing himself under their care 
for the other and more boisterous univer- 
sity. The voyage did not last more than 
six or eight weeks, and the philosophy in- 
flicted on Carrigaholt was not entirely fatal 
to him. Certainly he was somewhat ema- 
ciated, and, for aught I know, he may have 
subscribed too largely to the "Feminine- 
66 



Chapter V] 



EOTHEN 



right-of -reason Society"; but it did not 
appear that his health had been seriously 
affected. There was a scheme on foot, it 
would seem, for taking the passenger back 
to England in the same schooner— a scheme, 
in fact, for keeping him perpetually afloat, 
and perpetually saturated with arguments; 
but when Carrigaholt found himself ashore, 
and remembered that the skipperina (who 
had imprudently remained on board) was 
not there to enforce her suggestions, he 
was open to the hints of his servant (a very 
sharp fellow), who arranged a plan for es- 
caping, and finally brought off his master 
to Giuseppini's hotel. 

Our friend afterwards went by sea to 
Smyrna, and there he now was in his glory. 
He had a good or at all events a gentleman- 
like judgment in matters of taste, and as 
his great object was to surround himself 
with all that his fancy could dictate, he lived 
in a state of perpetual negotiation; he 
was forever on the point of purchasing, not 
only the material productions of the place, 
but all sorts of such fine ware as "intelli- 
gence," "fidelity," and so on. He was most 
curious, however, as the purchaser of the 
" affections." Sometimes he would imagine 
that he had a marital aptitude, and his fancy 
would sketch a graceful picture, in which 
67 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter V 



he appeared reclining on a divan, with a 
beautiful Greek woman fondly couched at 
his feet, and soothing him with the witch- 
ery of her guitar. Having satisfied himself 
with the ideal picture thus created, he 
would pass into action: the guitar he would 
buy instantly, and would give such intima- 
tions of his wish, to be wedded to a Greek 
as could not fail to produce great excite- 
ment in the families of the beautiful Smyr- 
niotes. Then again— and just in time, 
perhaps, to save him from the yoke— his 
dream would pass away, and another would 
come in its stead. He would suddenly feel 
the yearnings of a father's love, and willing 
by force of gold to transcend all natural 
preliminaries, he would issue instructions 
for the purchase of some dutiful child that 
could be warranted to love him as a parent. 
Then at another time he would be con- 
vinced that the attachment of menials 
might satisfy the longings of his affection- 
ate heart, and thereupon he would give 
orders to his slave-merchant for something 
in the way of eternal fidelity. You may 
well imagine that this anxiety of Carriga- 
holt to purchase, not only the scenery, but 
the many dramatis personae belonging to 
his dreams, with all their goodness and 
graces complete, necessarily gave an im- 
68 



Chapter V] 



EOTHEN 



mense stimulus to the trade and intrigue 
of Smyrna, and created a demand for human 
virtues which the moral resources of the 
place were totally inadequate to supply. 
Every day, after breakfast, this lover of 
the Good and the Beautiful held a levee. In 
his anteroom there would be not only the 
sellers of pipes and slippers and shawls, and 
such like Oriental merchandise, not only 
embroiderers and cunning workmen pa- 
tiently striving to realize his visions of 
Albanian dresses, not only the servants 
offering for places, and the slave-dealer 
tendering his sable ware, but there would 
be the Greek master waiting to teach his 
pupil the grammar of the soft Ionian 
tongue in which he was to delight the 
wife of his imagination, and the music- 
master who was to teach him some sweet 
replies to the anticipated tones of the 
fancied guitar; and then, above all, and 
proudly eminent with undisputed prefer- 
ence of entree, and fraught with the mys- 
terious tidings on which the realization of 
the whole dream might depend, was the 
mysterious match-maker, 1 enticing and 
postponing the suitor, yet ever keeping 
alive in his soul the love of that pictured 

1 Marriages in the East are arranged by professed match- 
makers ; many of these, I believe, are Jewesses. 

69 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter V 



virtue whose beauty (unseen by eyes) was 
half revealed to the imagination. 

You would have thought that this prac- 
tical dreaming must have soon brought 
Carrigaholt to a bad end, but he was in 
much less danger than might be supposed: 
for besides that the new visions of happi- 
ness almost always came in time to coun- 
teract the fatal completion of the preceding 
scheme, his high breeding and his delicately 
sensitive taste almost always befriended 
him at times when he was left without any 
other protection, and the efficacy of these 
qualities in keeping a man out of harm's 
way is really immense. In all baseness and 
imposture there is a coarse, vulgar spirit 
which, however artfully concealed for a 
time, must sooner or later show itself in 
some little circumstance sufficiently plain 
to occasion an instant jar upon the minds 
of those whose taste is lively and true; to 
such men a shock of this kind, disclosing 
the ugliness of a cheat, is more effectively 
convincing than any mere proofs could be. 

Thus guarded from isle to isle, and 
through Greece and through Albania, this 
practical Plato, with a purse in his hand, 
carried on his mad chase after the Good 
and the Beautiful, and yet returned in safety 
to his home. But now, poor fellow, the 
70 



Chapter V] 



EOTHEN 



lowly grave that is the end of men's ro- 
mantic hopes has closed over all his rich 
fancies and all his high aspirations. He is 
utterly married! No more hope, no more 
change, for him; no more relays: he must 
go on Vetturiniwise to the appointed end 
of his journey! 

Smyrna, I think, may be called the chief 
town and capital of that Grecian race against 
which you will be cautioned so carefully as 
soon as you touch the Levant. You will 
say that I ought not to confound as one 
people the Greeks living under a constitu- 
tional government with the unfortunate 
Rayas who "groan under the Turkish 
yoke," but I can't see that political events 
have hitherto produced any strongly 
marked difference of character. If I could 
venture to rely (this I feel that I cannot 
at all do) upon my own observation, I 
should tell you that there were more heart- 
iness and strength in the Greeks of the 
Ottoman Empire than in those of the new 
kingdom; the truth is that there is a greater 
field for commercial enterprise, and even for 
Greek ambition, under the Ottoman scep- 
ter than is to be found in the dominions of 
Otho. Indeed, the people, by their frequent 
migrations from the limits of the constitu- 
tional kingdom to the territories of the 
71 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter V 



Porte, seem to show that, on the whole, 
they prefer "groaning under the Turkish 
yoke " to the honor of "being the only true 
source of legitimate power" in their own 
land. 

For myself, I love the race; in spite of all 
their vices, and even in spite of all their 
meannesses^ I remember the blood that is in 
them, and still love the Greeks. The Os- 
manlis are, of course, by nature, by religion, 
and by politics, the strong foes of the 
Hellenic people; and as the Greeks, poor 
fellows! happen to be a little deficient in 
some of the virtues which facilitate the 
transaction of commercial business (such 
as veracity, fidelity, etc.), it naturally follows 
that they are highly unpopular with the 
European merchants. Now, these are the 
persons through whom, either directly or 
indirectly, is derived the greater part of the 
information which you gather in the Levant, 
and therefore you must make up your mind 
to hear an almost universal and unbroken 
testimony against the character of the 
people whose ancestors invented virtue. 
And strange to say, the Greeks themselves 
do not attempt to disturb this general una- 
nimity of opinion by any dissent on their 
part. Question a Greek on the subject, and 
he will tell you at once that the people are 
72 



Chapter V] 



EOTHEN 



"traditori," and will then, perhaps, endeavor 
to shake off his fair share of the imputation 
by asserting that his father had been drago- 
man to some foreign embassy, and that he 
(the son), therefore, by the law of nations, 
had ceased to be Greek. 

"E dunque no siete traditore?" 

66 Possibile, signor, ma almeno Io no sono 
Greco." 

Not even the diplomatic representatives 
of the Hellenic kingdom are free from the 
habit of depreciating their brethren. I 
recollect that at one of the ports in Syria 
a Greek vessel was rather unfairly kept in 
quarantine by order of the Board of Health, 
a board which consisted entirely of Euro- 
peans. A consular agent from the kingdom 
of Greece had lately hoisted his flag in the 
town, and the captain of the vessel drew up 
a remonstrance, and requested his consul 
to lay it before the Board. 

"Now, is this reasonable?" said the con- 
sul. "Is it reasonable that I should place 
myself in collision with all the principal 
European gentlemen of the place for the 
sake of you, a Greek?" The skipper was 
greatly vexed at the failure of his applica- 
tion, but he scarcely even questioned the 
justice of the ground which his consul had 
taken. Well, it happened some time after- 
73 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter V 



wards that I found myself at the same port, 
having gone thither with the view of em- 
barking for the port of Syra. I was anxious, 
of course, to elude as carefully as possible 
the quarantine detentions which threatened 
me on my arrival, and hearing that the 
Greek consul had a brother who was a man 
in authority at Syra, I got myself presented 
to the former, and took the liberty of ask- 
ing him to give me such a letter of intro- 
duction to his relative at Syra as might 
possibly have the effect of shortening the 
term of quarantine. He acceded to this re- 
quest with the utmost kindness and cour- 
tesy; but when he replied to my thanks by 
saying that "in serving an Englishman he 
was doing no more than his strict duty 
commanded," not even my gratitude could 
prevent me from calling to mind his treat- 
ment of the poor captain who had the mis- 
fortune of not being an alien in blood to his 
consul and appointed protector. 

I think that the change which has taken 
place in the character of the Greeks has 
been occasioned, in great measure, by the 
doctrines and practice of their religion. 
The Greek Church has animated the Mus- 
covite peasant, and inspired him with hopes 
and ideas which, however humble, are still 
better than none at all; but the faith and 
74 



Chapter V] 



EOTHEN 



the forms and the strange ecclesiastical 
literature which act so advantageously upon 
the mere clay of the Russian serf seem to 
hang like lead upon the ethereal spirit of 
the Greek. Never, in any part of the world, 
have I seen religious performances so pain- 
ful to witness as those of the Greeks. The 
horror, however, with which one shudders 
at their worship is attributable, in some 
measure, to the mere effect of costume. In 
all the Ottoman dominions, and very fre- 
quently, too, in the kingdom of Otho, the 
Greeks wear turbans or other head-dresses, 
and shave their heads, leaving only a rat's 
tail at the crown of the head. They, of course, 
keep themselves covered within doors, as 
well as abroad, and they never remove their 
head-gear merely on account of being in a 
church: but when the Greek stops to wor- 
ship at his proper shrine, then, and then 
only, he always uncovers; and as you see him 
thus with shaven skull, and savage tail de- 
pending from his crown, kissing a thing of 
wood and glass, and cringing with base 
prostrations and apparent terror before a 
miserable picture, you see superstition in a 
shape which, outwardly at least, is sadly 
abject and repulsive. 

The fasts, too, of the Greek Church pro- 
duce an ill effect upon the character of the 
75 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter V 



people, for they are not a mere farce, but are 
carried to such an extent as to bring about a 
real mortification of the flesh. The febrile 
irritation of the frame, operating in con- 
junction with the depression of the spirits 
occasioned by abstinence, will so far answer 
the objects of the rite as to engender some 
religious excitement; but this is of a morbid 
and gloomy character, and it seems to be 
certain that, along with the increase of sanc- 
tity, there comes a fiercer desire for the per- 
petration of dark crimes. The number of 
murders committed during Lent is greater, 
I am told, than at any other time of the year. 
A man under the influence of a bean dietary 
—for this is the principal food of the Greeks 
during their fasts— will be in an apt humor 
for enriching the shrine of his saint and 
passing a knife through his next-door neigh- 
bor. The moneys deposited upon the shrines 
are appropriated by priests; the priests 
are married men, and have families to pro- 
vide for; they "take the good with the bad," 
and continue to recommend fasts. 

Then, too, the Greek Church enjoins her 
followers to keep holy such a vast number 
of saints' days as practically to shorten the 
lives of the people very materially. I be- 
lieve that one third out of the number of 
days in the year are "kept holy," or rather 
76 



Chapter V] 



EOTHEN 



kept stupid, in honor of the saints. No great 
portion of the time thus set apart is spent 
in religious exercises, and the people don't 
betake themselves to any such animating 
pastimes as might serve to strengthen the 
frame, or invigorate the mind, or exalt the 
taste. On the contrary, the saints' days of 
the Greeks in Smyrna are passed in the same 
manner as the Sabbaths of well-behaved 
Protestant housemaids in London— that is 
to say, in a steady and serious contempla- 
tion of street scenery. The men perform 
this duty at the doors of their houses, the 
women at the windows. Windows, indeed, 
by the custom of Greek towns, are so 
decidedly appropriated to the gentle sex 
that a man would be looked upon as utterly 
effeminate if he ventured to choose such 
a position for the keeping of his saints' 
days. I was present one day at a treaty for 
the hire of some apartments at Smyrna, 
which was carried on between Carrigaholt 
and the Greek woman to whom the rooms 
belonged. Carrigaholt objected that the 
windows commanded no view of the street. 
Immediately the brow of the majestic ma- 
tron was clouded, and with all the scorn of 
a Spartan mother she coolly asked Carriga- 
holt and said: "Art thou a tender damsel, 
that thou wouldst sit and gaze from win- 
77 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter V 



dows?" The man whom she addressed, 
however, had not gone to Greece with any 
intention of placing himself under the laws 
of Lycurgus, and was not to be diverted 
from his views by a Spartan rebuke, so he 
took care to find himself windows after his 
own heart, and there, I believe, for many a 
month he kept the saints' days, and all the 
days intervening, after the fashion of Gre- 
cian women. 

Oh, let me be charitable to all who write, 
and to all who lecture, and to all who preach, 
since even I, a layman not forced to write 
at all, can hardly avoid chiming in with 
some tuneful cant! I have had the heart 
to talk about the pernicious effects of the 
Greek holidays; and yet to these I owe most 
gracious and beautiful visions! I will let the 
words stand, as a humbling proof that I am 
subject to that nearly immutable law which 
compels a man with a pen in his hand to be 
uttering every now and then some senti- 
ment not his own. It seems as though the 
power of expressing regrets and desires by 
written symbols were coupled with a con- 
dition that the writer should from time to 
time express the regrets and desires of 
other people— as though, like a French 
peasant under the old regime, he were 
bound to perform a certain amount of work 
78 



Chapter V] 



EOTHEN 



upon the public highways. I rebel as stoutly 
as I can against this horrible corvee; I try 
not to deceive you; I try to set down the 
thoughts which are fresh within me, and 
not to pretend any wishes or griefs which I 
do not really feel : but no sooner do I cease 
from watchfulness in this regard than my 
right hand is, as it were, seized by some 
false angel, and even now, you see, I have 
been forced to put down such words and 
sentences as I ought to have written if 
really and truly I had wished to disturb the 
saints' days of the beautiful Smyrniotes! 

Disturb their saints' days? Oh, no! for as 
you move through the narrow streets of 
the city, at these times of festival, the tran- 
som-shaped windows suspended over your 
head on either side are filled with the beau- 
tiful descendants of the old Ionian race; 
all (even yonder empress throned at the 
window of that humblest mud cottage) are 
attired with seeming magnificence. Their 
classic heads are crowned with scarlet and 
laden with jewels or coins of gold— the 
whole wealth of the wearers; 1 their fea- 
tures are touched with a savage pencil, 

1 A Greek woman wears her whole fortune upon her per- 
son, in the shape of jewels or gold coins. I believe that this 
mode of investment is adopted in great measure for safety's 
sake. It has the advantage of enabling a suitor to reckon as 
well as to admire the objects of his affection. 

79 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter V 



hardening the outline of eyes and eye- 
brows, and lending an unnatural Are to the 
stern, grave looks with which they pierce 
your brain. Endure their fiery eyes as best 
you may, and ride on slowly and reverently, 
for, facing you from the side of the transom 
that looks longwise through the street, 
you see the one glorious shape transcendent 
in its beauty; you see the massive braid of 
hair as it catches a touch of light on its 
jetty surface, and the broad, calm, angry 
brow; the large eyes, deeply set and self- 
relying, as the eyes of a conqueror, with 
all their rich shadows of thought lying 
darkly around them; you see the thin, fiery 
nostril, and the bold line of the chin and 
throat, disclosing all the fierceness and all 
the pride, passion, and power that can live 
along with the rare womanly beauty of 
those sweetly turned lips. But then there 
is a terrible stillness in this breathing 
image; it seems like the stillness of a sav- 
age that sits intent and brooding day by 
day upon some one fearful scheme of ven- 
geance; and yet more like it seems to the 
stillness of an immortal, whose will must be 
known and obeyed without sign or speech. 
Bow down ! bow down and adore the young 
Persephone, transcendent Queen of Shades! 



80 



CHAPTER 
VI 



Greek mariners. 



I SAILED from Smyrna in the Amphitrite, 
a Greek brigantine which was confidently 
said to be bound for the coast of Syria; 
but I knew that this announcement was not 
to be relied upon with positive certainty, for 
the Greek mariners are practically free from 
the stringency of ship's papers, and where 
they will, there they go. However, I had 
the whole of the cabin for myself and my 
attendant Mysseri, subject only to the so- 
ciety of the captain at the hour of dinner; 
being at ease in this respect, being fur- 
nished, too, with plenty of books, and find- 
ing an unfailing source of interest in the 
thorough Greekness of my captain and my 
crew, I felt less anxious than most people 
would have been about the probable length 
of the cruise. I knew enough of Greek navi- 
gation to be sure that our vessel would cling 
to earth like a child to its mother's knee, and 
that I should touch at many an isle before 
e 81 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VI 



I set foot upon the Syrian coast; but I had no 
invidious preference for Europe, Asia, or Af- 
rica (I was safe from all danger of America), 
and I felt that I could defy the winds to blow 
me upon a coast that was blank and void of in- 
terest. My patience was extremely useful to 
me, for the cruise altogether endured some 
forty days, and that in the midst of winter. 

According to me, the most interesting of 
all the Greeks (male Greeks) are the mari- 
ners, because their pursuits and their social 
condition are so nearly the same as those of 
their famous ancestors. You will say that 
the occupation of commerce must have 
smoothed down the salience of their minds; 
and this would be so, perhaps, if their mer- 
cantile affairs were conducted according to 
the fixed, businesslike routine of Euro- 
peans: but the ventures of the Greeks are 
surrounded by such a multitude of ima- 
gined dangers and (from the absence of 
regular marts, in which the true value of 
merchandise can be ascertained), are so 
entirely speculative, and besides are con- 
ducted in a manner so wholly determined 
upon by the wayward fancies and wishes of 
the crew, that they belong to enterprise 
rather than to industry, and are very far 
indeed from tending to deaden any fresh- 
ness of character. 

82 



Chapter VI] 



EOTHEN 



The vessels in which war and piracy were 
carried on during the years of the Greek 
Revolution became merchantmen at the 
end of the war; but the tactics of the Greeks 
as naval warriors were so exceedingly cau- 
tious, and their habits as commercial mari- 
ners are so wild, that the change has been 
more slight than you might imagine. The 
first care of Greeks (Greek Rayas), when 
they undertake a shipping enterprise, is 
to procure for their vessel the protection 
of some European power; this is easily 
managed by a little intriguing with the drag- 
oman of one of the embassies at Constan- 
tinople, and the craft soon glories in the 
ensign of Russia, or the dazzling tricolor, 
or the Union Jack; thus, to the great de- 
light of her crew, she enters upon the ocean 
world with a flaring lie at her peak. But the 
appearance of the vessel does no discredit 
to the borrowed flag; she is frail, indeed, but 
is gracefully built and smartly rigged; she 
always carries guns, and, in short, gives 
good promise of mischief and speed. 

The privileges attached to the vessel and 
her crew by virtue of the borrowed flag are 
so great as to imply a liberty wider even 
than that which is often enjoyed in our 
more strictly civilized countries, so that 
there is no good ground for saying that 
83 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VI 



the development of the true character 
belonging to Greek mariners is prevented 
by the dominion of the Ottoman. These 
men are free, too, from the power of the 
great capitalist— a power more withering 
than despotism itself to the enterprises of 
humble venturers. The capital employed 
is supplied by those whose labor is to 
render it productive. The crew receive 
no wages, but have all a share in the 
venture, and in general, I believe, they 
are the owners of the whole freight: they 
choose a captain to whom they intrust just 
power enough to keep the vessel on her 
course in fine weather, but not quite enough 
for a gale of wind; they also elect a cook 
and a mate. The cook whom we had on board 
was particularly careful about the ship's 
reckoning, and when, under the influence of 
the keen sea-breezes, we grew fondly ex- 
pectant of an instant dinner, the great 
author of pilaf s would be standing on deck 
with an ancient quadrant in his hands, 
calmly affecting to take an observation. 
But then, to make up for this, the captain 
would be exercising a controlling influence 
over the soup, so that all in the end went 
well. Our mate was a Hydriot, a native of 
that island rock which grows nothing but 
mariners and mariners' wives. His char- 
84 



Chapter VI] 



EOTHEN 



acter seemed to be exactly that which is 
generally attributed to the Hydriot race: he 
was fierce and gloomy and lonely in his 
ways. One of his principal duties seemed 
to be that of acting as counter-captain, or 
leader of the opposition, denouncing the 
first symptoms of tyranny, and protecting 
even the cabin-boy from oppression. Be- 
sides this, when things went smoothly he 
would begin to prognosticate evil, in order 
that his more light-hearted comrades might 
not be puffed up with the seeming good 
fortune of the moment. 

It seemed to me that the personal free- 
dom of these sailors, who own no superiors 
except those of their own choice, is as like as 
may be to that of their seafaring ancestors. 
And even in their mode of navigation they 
have admitted no such an entire change as 
you would suppose probable; it is true that 
they have so far availed themselves of 
modern discoveries as to look to the com- 
pass instead of the stars, and that they 
have superseded the immortal gods of their 
forefathers by St. Nicholas in his glass case, 1 
but they are not yet so confident, either in 
their needle or their saint, as to love an 

1 St. Nicholas is the great patron of Greek sailors ; a small 
picture of him inclosed in a glass case is hung up like a ba- 
rometer at one end of the cabin. 



85 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VI 



open sea, and they still hug their shores as 
fondly as the Argonauts of old. Indeed, they 
have a most unsailor-like love for the land, 
and I really believe that in a gale of wind 
they would rather have a rock-bound coast 
on their lee than no coast at all. Accord- 
ing to the notions of an English seaman, 
this kind of navigation would soon bring the 
vessel on which it might be practised to an 
evil end. The Greek, however, is unac- 
countably successful in escaping the con- 
sequences of being "jammed in," as it is 
called, upon a lee shore. 

These seamen, like their forefathers, rely 
upon no winds unless they are right astern 
or on the quarter; they rarely go on a wind 
if it blows at all fresh; and if the adverse 
breeze approaches to a gale, they at once 
fumigate St. Nicholas and put up the helm. 
The consequence, of course, is that under 
the ever-varying winds of the Aegean they 
are blown about in the most whimsical 
manner. I used to think that Ulysses, with 
his ten years' voyage, had taken his time in 
making Ithaca, but my experience in Greek 
navigation soon made me understand that 
he had had, in point of fact, a pretty good 
"average passage." 

Such are now the mariners of the iEgean; 
free, equal amongst themselves, navigating 
86 



Chapter VI] 



EOTHEN 



the seas of their forefathers with the same 
heroic and yet childlike spirit of venture, 
the same half-trustful reliance upon hea- 
venly aid, they are the liveliest images of 
true old Greeks that time and the new re- 
ligion have spared to us. 

With one exception, our crew were "a 
solemn company," and yet, sometimes, 
if all things went well, they would relax 
their austerity, and show a disposition to 
fun, or rather to quiet humor. When this 
happened, they invariably had recourse to 
one of their number who went by the name 
of 66 Admiral Nicolou." He was an amusing 
fellow, the poorest, I believe, and the least 
thoughtful of the crew, but full of rich hu- 
mor. His oft-told story of the events by 
which he had gained the sobriquet of "Ad- 
miral" never failed to delight his hearers, 
and when he was desired to repeat it for my 
benefit, the rest of the crew crowded round 
with as much interest as if they were listen- 
ing to the tale for the first time. The tale 
was this: A number of Greek brigs and brig- 
an tines were at anchor in the bay at Beirut; 
a festival of some kind, particularly attrac- 
tive to the sailors, was going on in the 
town, and whether with or without leave I 
know not, the crews of all the craft, except 
that of Nicolou, had gone ashore; on board 
87 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VI 



his vessel (she carried dollars) there was, 
it would seem, a more careful or more in- 
fluential captain— a man who was able to 
enforce his determination that at least one 
of the crew should be left on board. Nicolou's 
good nature was with him so powerful an 
impulse that he could not resist the delight 
of volunteering to stay with the vessel 
whilst his comrades went ashore; his propo- 
sal was accepted, and the crew and captain 
soon left him alone on the deck of his ves- 
sel. The sailors, gathering together from 
their several ships, were amusing them- 
selves in the town, when suddenly there 
came down from betwixt the mountains 
one of those sudden hurricanes which some- 
times occur in southern climes. Nicolou's 
vessel, together with four of the craft which 
had been left unmanned, broke from her 
moorings, and all five of the vessels were 
carried out seaward. The town is on a salient 
point at the southern side of the bay, so 
that the " Admiral " was close under the 
eyes of the inhabitants and the shore-gone 
sailors when he gallantly drifted out at the 
head of his little fleet. If Nicolou could not 
entirely control the manoeuvers of the 
squadron, there was at least no human 
power to divide his authority, and thus it 
was that he took rank as " Admiral." Nico- 



Chapter VI] 



EOTHEN 



lou cut his cable, and so, for the time, 
saved his vessel; the rest of the fleet un- 
der his command were quickly wrecked, 
whilst the " Admiral " got away clear to the 
open sea. The violence of the squall soon 
passed off, but Nicolou felt that his chance 
of one day resigning his high duties as an 
admiral for the enjoyments of private life on 
the steadfast shore mainly depended upon 
his success in working the brig with his 
own hands; so after calling on his name- 
sake, the saint (not for the first time, I take 
it), he got up some canvas and took the 
helm; he became equal, he told us, to a 
score of Nicolous, and the vessel, as he said, 
was " manned with his terrors." For two 
days, it seems, he cruised at large; but at 
last, either by his seamanship or by the 
natural instinct of the Greek mariners for 
finding land, he brought his craft close to 
an unknown shore that promised well for 
his purpose of running in the vessel, and 
he was preparing to give her a good berth 
on the beach when he saw a gang of fero- 
cious-looking fellows coming down to the 
point for which he was making. Poor Nico- 
lou was a perfectly unlettered and untu- 
tored genius, and for that reason, perhaps, 
a keen listener to tales of terror; his mind 
had been impressed with some horrible 
89 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VI 



legend of cannibalism, and he now did not 
doubt for a moment that the men awaiting 
him on the beach were the monsters at 
whom he had shuddered in the days of his 
childhood. The coast on which Nicolou was 
running his vessel was somewhere, I fancy, 
at the foot of the Anzairie Mountains, and 
the fellows who were preparing to give him 
a reception were probably very rough speci- 
mens of humanity; it is likely enough that 
they might have given themselves the trou- 
ble of putting the "Admiral" to death, for 
the purpose of simplifying their claim to 
the vessel and preventing litigation, but the 
notion of their cannibalism was, of course, 
utterly unfounded. Nicolou's terror had, 
however, so graven the idea on his mind 
that he could never after dismiss it. 
Having once determined the character of 
his expectant hosts, the "Admiral" natu- 
rally thought that it would be better to 
keep their dinner waiting any length of 
time than to attend their feast in the char- 
acter of a roasted Greek, so he put about 
his vessel and tempted the deep once more. 
After a farther cruise the lonely commander 
ran his vessel upon some rocks at another 
part of the coast: there she was lost with 
all her treasures, and Nicolou was but too 
glad to scramble ashore, though without one 
90 



Chapter VI] 



EOTHEN 



dollar in his girdle. These adventures seem 
flat enough as I repeat them, but the hero 
expressed his terrors by such odd terms of 
speech and such strangely humorous ges- 
tures that the story came from his lips with 
an unfailing zest, so that the crew who had 
heard the tale so often could still enjoy to 
their hearts the rich fright of the "Ad- 
miral, 5 ' and still shuddered with unabated 
horror when he came to the loss of the 
dollars. 

The power of listening to long stories (and 
for this, by the by, I am giving you large 
credit) is common, I fancy, to most sailors, 
and the Greeks have it to a high degree, 
for they can be perfectly patient under a 
narrative of two or three hours' duration. 
These long stories are mostly founded upon 
Oriental topics, and in one of them I recog- 
nized with some alteration an old friend 
of the "Arabian Nights." I inquired as to 
the source from which the story had been 
derived, and the crew all agreed that it had 
been handed down unwritten from Greek to 
Greek; their account of the matter does not, 
perhaps, go very far towards showing the 
real origin of the tale, but when I afterwards 
took up the "Arabian Nights," I became 
strongly impressed with a notion that they 
must have sprung from the brain of a Greek. 
91 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VI 



It seems to me that these stories, whilst they 
disclose a complete and habitual knowledge 
of things Asiatic, have about them so much 
of freshness and life, so much of the stir- 
ring and volatile European character, that 
they cannot have owed their conception to 
a mere Oriental, who, for creative purposes, 
is a thing dead and dry— a mental mummy 
that may have been a live king just after 
the flood, but has since lain balmed in 
spice. 

At the time of the Califate the Greek 
race was familiar enough to Bagdad; they 
were the merchants, the peddlers, the bar- 
bers, and intriguers-general, of south- 
western Asia, and therefore the Oriental 
materials with which the Arabian tales were 
wrought must have been completely at the 
command of the inventive people to whom 
I would attribute their origin. 

We were nearing the isle of Cyprus, when 
there arose half a gale of wind, with a 
heavy, chopping sea. My Greek seamen 
considered that the weather amounted not 
to a half but to an integral gale of wind at 
the very least ; so they put up the helm, and 
scudded for twenty hours. When we neared 
the mainland of Anadoli, the gale ceased, 
and a favorable breeze springing up, soon 
brought us off Cyprus once more. After- 
92 



Chapter VI] 



EOTHEN 



wards the wind changed again, but we were 
still able to lay our course by sailing close- 
hauled. 

We were, at length, in such a position 
that by holding on our course for about 
half an hour we should get under the lee 
of the island and find ourselves in smooth 
water; but the wind had been gradually 
freshening; it now blew hard, and there was 
a heavy sea running. 

As the grounds for alarm arose, the crew 
gathered together in one close group; they 
stood pale and grim under their hooded 
capotes, like monks awaiting a massacre, 
anxiously looking by turns along the path- 
way of the storm, and then upon each other, 
and then upon the eye of the captain, who 
stood by the helmsman. Presently the 
Hydriot came aft, more moody than ever, 
the bearer of fierce remonstrance against 
the continuing of the struggle; he received 
a resolute answer, and still we held our 
course. Soon there came a heavy sea, that 
caught the bow of the brigantine as she lay 
jammed in betwixt the waves. She bowed 
her head low under the waters, and shud- 
dered through all her timbers, then gal- 
lantly stood up again over the striving sea 
with bowsprit entire. But where were the 
crew? It was a crew no longer, but rather 
93 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VI 



a gathering of Greek citizens; the shout of 
the seamen was changed for the murmuring 
of the people— the spirit of the old demos 
was alive. The men came aft in a body 
and loudly asked that the vessel should 
be put about, and that the storm be no 
longer tempted. Now, then, for speeches :— 
the captain, his eyes flashing fire, his frame 
all quivering with emotion, wielding his 
every limb like another and a louder voice, 
pours forth the eloquent torrent of his 
threats and his reasons, his commands and 
his prayers; he promises, he vows, he swears 
that there is safety in holding on— safety if 
Greeks will be brave! The men hear, and 
are moved; but the gale rouses itself once 
more, and again the raging sea comes 
trampling over the timbers that are the 
life of all. The fierce Hydriot advances 
one step nearer to the captain, and the 
angry growl of the people goes floating 
down the wind, but they listen; they waver 
once more, and once more resolve, then 
waver again, thus doubtfully hanging be- 
tween the terrors of the storm and the 
persuasion of glorious speech, as though it 
were the Athenian that talked, and Philip 
of Macedon that thundered on the weather 
bow. 

Brave thoughts winged on Grecian words 
94 



Chapter VI] 



EOTHEN 



gained their natural mastery over terror; 
the brigantine held on her course, and 
reached smooth water at last. I landed at 
Limesol, the westernmost port of Cyprus, 
leaving the brigantine to sail for Larnecca, 
and there await my arrival. 



95 



CHAPTER 
VII 



Cyprus. 



HERE was a Greek at Limesol who 



hoisted his flag as an English vice- 



JL consul, and he insisted upon my ac- 
cepting his hospitality; with some difficulty, 
and chiefly by assuring him that I could not 
delay my departure beyond an early hour in 
the afternoon, I induced him to allow my 
dining with his family instead of banqueting 
all alone with the representative of my 
sovereign, in consular state and dignity. 
The lady of the house, it seemed, had never 
sat at table with an European. She was 
very shy about the matter, and tried hard 
to get out of the scrape; but the husband, 
I fancy, reminded her that she was theoret- 
ically an Englishwoman by virtue of the 
flag that waved over her roof, and that 
she was bound to show her nationality by 
sitting at meat with me. Finding herself 
inexorably condemned to bear with the 
dreaded gaze of European eyes, she tried 
to save her innocent children from the 




96 



Chapter VII ] 



EOTHEN 



hard fate awaiting herself; but I obtained 
that all of them (and I think there were 
four or five) should sit at the table. You 
will meet with abundance of stately recep- 
tions and of generous hospitality, too, in 
the East, but rarely, very rarely in those 
regions (or even, so far as I know, in any 
part of southern Europe), does one gain an 
opportunity of seeing the familiar and in- 
door life of the people. 

This family party of the good consul's (or 
rather of mine, for I originated the idea, 
though he furnished the materials) went off 
very well. The mama was shy at first, 
but she veiled her awkwardness by affect- 
ing to scold the children; these had all 
immortal names— names, too, which they 
owed to tradition, and certainly not to 
any classical enthusiasm of their parents. 
Every instant I was delighted by some such 
phrases as these: "Themistocles, my love, 
don't fight." "Alcibiades, can't you sit 
still?" "Socrates, put down the cup." 
"Oh, fie! Aspasia, don't; oh, don't be 
naughty! " It is true that the names were 
pronounced Socrahtie, Aspahsie— that is, 
according to accent, and not according to 
quantity, but I suppose it is scarcely now 
to be doubted that they were so sounded 
in ancient times. 



7 



97 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VII 



To me it seems that of all the lands I 
know (you will see in a minute how I con- 
nect this piece of prose with the isle of 
Cyprus) there is none in which mere wealth, 
mere unaided wealth, is held half so cheaply 
—none in which a poor devil of a millionaire 
without birth or ability occupies so humble 
a place — as in England. My Greek host was 
chatting with me, I think upon the roof of 
the house (for that is the lounging-place in 
Eastern climes), when suddenly he assumed 
a serious air, and intimated a wish to talk 
over the British Constitution, a subject 
with which, as he assured me, he was thor- 
oughly acquainted. He presently, however, 
remarked that there was one anomalous 
circumstance attendant upon the practical 
working of our political system which he 
had never been able to hear explained in a 
manner satisfactory to himself. From the 
fact of his having found a difficulty in his 
subject, I began to think that my host might 
really know rather more of it than his an- 
nouncement of a thorough knowledge had 
led me to expect; I felt interested at being 
about to hear from the lips of an intelligent 
Greek, quite remote from the influence of 
European opinions, what might seem to him 
the most astonishing and incomprehensible 
of all those results which have followed from 
98 



Chapter VII] 



EOTHEN 



the action of our political institutions. The 
anomaly— the only anomaly which had been 
detected by the vice-consular wisdom— con- 
sisted in the fact that Rothschild (the late 
money-monger) had never been the Prime 
Minister of England! I gravely tried to 
throw some light upon the mysterious 
causes that had kept the worthy Israelite 
out of the Cabinet; but I think I could see 
that my explanation was not satisfactory. 
Go and argue with the flies of summer 
that there is a Power divine yet greater 
than the sun in the heavens, but never dare 
hope to convince the people of the South 
that there is any other God than Gold. 

My intended journey was to the site of 
the Paphian temple. I take no antiquarian 
interest in ruins, and care little about them, 
unless they are either striking in them- 
selves, or else serve to mark some spot very 
dear to my fancy. I knew that the ruins 
of Paphos were scarcely, if at all, discerni- 
ble; but there was a will and a longing more 
imperious than mere curiosity that drove 
me thither. 

For this just then was my pagan soul's 
desire : that (not forfeiting my inheritance 
for the life to come) it had yet been given 
me to live through this world— to live a fa- 
vored mortal under the old Olympian dis- 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VII 



pensation ; to speak out my resolves to the 
listening Jove, and hear him answer with 
approving thunder; to be blessed with di- 
vine counsels from the lips of Pallas Athene; 
to believe, aye, only to believe— to believe 
for one rapturous moment that in the 
gloomy depths of the grove by the moun- 
tain's side there were some leafy pathway 
that crisped beneath the glowing sandal of 
Aphrodite— Aphrodite, not coldly disdain- 
ful of even a mortal's love! And this vain, 
heathenish longing of mine was father to 
the thought of visiting the scene of the 
ancient worship. 

The isle is beautiful; from the edge of the 
rich, flowery fields on which I trod, to 
the midway sides of the snowy Olympus, 
the ground could only here and there show 
an abrupt crag, or a high, straggling ridge, 
that up-shouldered itself from out of the 
wilderness of myrtles, and of a thousand 
bright-leaved shrubs that twined their arms 
together in lovesome tangles. The air that 
came to my lips was warm and fragrant as 
the ambrosial breath of the goddess, infect- 
ing me, not, of course, with a faith in the 
old religion of the isle, but with a sense 
and apprehension of its mystic power— a 
power that was still to be obeyed— obeyed 
by me ; for why otherwise did I toil on with 
100 



Chapter VII] 



EOTHEN 



sorry horses to "where, for HER, the hun- 
dred altars glowed with Arabian incense, 
and breathed with the fragrance of garlands 
ever fresh " ? 1 

I passed a sadly disenchanting night in the 
cabin of a Greek priest— not a priest of the 
goddess, but of the Greek Church. There 
was but one humble room, or rather shed, 
for man and priest and beast. The next 
morning I reached Baffa (Paphos), a village 
not far distant from the site of the temple; 
there was a Greek husbandman there who 
(not for emolument, but for the sake of the 
protection and dignity which it afforded) 
had got leave from the man at Limesol to 
hoist his flag as a sort of deputy-provision- 
ary-sub-vice-pro-acting-consul of the Brit- 
ish sovereign; the poor fellow instantly 
changed his Greek head-gear for the cap of 
consular dignity, and insisted upon accom- 
panying me to the ruins. I would not have 
stood this if I could have felt the faintest 
gleam of my yesterday's pagan piety, but I 
had, ceased to dream, and had nothing to 
dread from any new disenchanters. 

The ruins (the fragments of one or two 
prostrate pillars) lie upon a promontory, 

1 " . . . ubi templum illi, centumque Sabaeo 

Thure calent arae, sertisque recentibus balant." 

^Eneid, i. 415. 

101 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VII 



bare, and unmystified by the gloom of sur- 
rounding groves. My Greek friend in his 
consular cap stood by, respectfully waiting 
to see what turn my madness would take, 
now that I had come at last into the pres- 
ence of the old stones. If you have no 
taste for research, and can't affect to look 
for inscriptions, there is some awkwardness 
in coming to the end of a merely sentimental 
pilgrimage, when the feeling which impelled 
you has gone. In such a strait you have 
nothing to do but to laugh the thing off 
as well as you can, and, by the by, it is not 
a bad plan to turn the conversation (or 
rather allow the natives to turn it) to- 
wards the subject of hidden treasures; this 
is a topic on which they will always speak 
with eagerness, and if they can fancy that 
you, too, take an interest in such matters, 
they will not only begin to think you per- 
fectly sane, but will even, perhaps, give 
you credit for some more than human 
powers of forcing dark earth to show you 
its hoards of gold. 

When we returned to Baff a, the vice-con- 
sul seized a club, with the quietly deter- 
mined air of a brave man resolved to do 
some deed of note. He went into the yard 
adjoining his cottage, where there were 
some thin, thoughtful, canting cocks, and 
102 



Chapter VII] 



EOTHEN 



serious, Low-Church-looking hens, respect- 
fully listening, and chickens of tender 
years so well brought up as scarcely to 
betray in their conduct the careless levity 
of youth. The vice-consul stood for a mo- 
ment quite calm— collecting his strength; 
then suddenly he rushed into the midst of 
the congregation, and began to deal death 
and destruction on all sides; he spared 
neither sex nor age. The dead and dying 
were immediately removed from the field 
of slaughter, and in less than an hour, 
I think, they were brought to the table, 
deeply buried in mounds of snowy rice. 

My host was in all respects a fine, gener- 
ous fellow; I could not bear the idea of 
impoverishing him by my visit, and my 
faithful Mysseri not only assured me that 
I might safely offer money to the vice-con- 
sul, but recommended that I should give 
no more to him than to "the others," 
meaning any other peasant. I felt, how- 
ever, that there was something about the 
man, besides the flag and cap, which made 
me shrink from offering coin, and as I 
mounted my horse on departing, I gave him 
the only thing fit for a present that I hap- 
pened to have with me, a rather handsome 
clasp-dagger, brought from Vienna. The 
poor fellow was ineffably grateful, and I 
103 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VII 



had some difficulty in tearing myself from 
out of the reach of his thanks. At last I 
gave him what I supposed to be the last 
farewell, and rode on; but I had not gained 
more than about a hundred yards, when 
my host came bounding and shouting after 
me, with a goat's-milk cheese in his hand, 
and this (it was rather a burdensome gift) 
he fondly implored me to accept. In old 
times the shepherd of Theocritus, or (to 
speak less dishonestly) the shepherd of 
the "Poetae Graeci," sang his best song; I 
in this latter age presented my best dag- 
ger: and both of us received the same 
rustic reward. 

It had been known that I should return 
to Limesol, and when I arrived there I 
found that a noble old Greek had been hos- 
pitably plotting to have me for his guest. 
I willingly accepted his offer. The day of 
my arrival happened to be my host's birth- 
day, and during all the morning there was 
a constant influx of visitors who came to 
offer their congratulations. A few of these 
were men, but most of them were young, 
graceful girls. Almost all of them went 
through the ceremony with the utmost pre- 
cision and formality: each in succession 
spoke her blessing, in the tone of a person 
repeating a set formula, then deferentially 
104 



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EOTHEN 



accepted the invitation to sit, partook of 
the proffered sweetmeats, and the cold, 
glittering water, remained for a few min- 
utes, either in silence or engaged in very 
thin conversation, then arose, delivered a 
second benediction, followed by an elabo- 
rate farewell, and departed. 

The bewitching power attributed at this 
day to the women of Cyprus is curious in 
connection with the worship of the sweet 
goddess who called their isle her own; the 
Cypriote is not, I think, nearly so beautiful 
in face as the Ionian queens of Izmir, but 
she is tall, and slightly formed; there is a 
high-souled meaning and expression, a 
seeming consciousness of gentle empire, that 
speaks in the wavy lines of the shoulder, 
and winds itself like Cytherea's own cestus 
around the slender waist; then, the richly 
abounding hair (not enviously gathered to- 
gether under the head-dress) descends the 
neck, and passes the waist in sumptuous 
braids. Of all other women with Grecian 
blood in their veins, the costume is gra- 
ciously beautiful; but these, the maidens of 
Limesol— their robes are more gently, more 
sweetly imagined, and fall like Julia's cash- 
mere in soft, luxurious folds. The common 
voice of the Levant allows that in face the 
women of Cyprus are less beautiful than 
105 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VII 



their majestic sisters of Smyrna; and yet, 
says the Greek, he may trust himself to one 
and all of the bright cities of the JEgean, and 
may still weigh anchor with a heart entire, 
but that so surely as he ventures upon the 
enchanted isle of Cyprus, so surely will he 
know the rapture or the bitterness of love. 
The charm, they say, owes its power to that 
which the people call the astonishing "pol- 
itics 99 (no^iTiKij) of the women, meaning, I 
fancy, their tact and their witching ways. 
The word, however, plainly fails to express 
one half of that which the speakers would 
say. I have smiled to hear the Greek, with 
all his plenteousness of fancy, and all the 
wealth of his generous language, yet vainly 
Struggling to describe the ineffable spell 
which the Parisians dispose of in their own 
smart way by a summary " Je ne sais quoi." 

I went to Larnecca, the chief city of the 
isle, and over the water at last to Beirut. 



106 



I 

CHAPTER 
VIII 



Lady Hester Stanhope. 



BEIRUT on its land side is hemmed 
in by mountains. There dwell the 
Druses. 

Often enough I saw the ghostly images 
of the women, with their exalted horns, 
stalking through the streets, and I saw, too, 
in traveling, the affrighted groups of the 
mountaineers as they fled before me, under 
the fear that my troop might be a company 
of income-tax commissioners, or a press- 
gang enforcing the conscription for Me- 
hemet Ali; but nearly all my knowledge of 
the people, except in regard of their mere 
costume and outward appearance, is drawn 
from books and despatches; 1 to these last I 
have the honor to refer you. 

I received hospitable welcome at Beirut, 
from the Europeans as well as from the 
Syrian Christians, and I soon discovered that 

1 The papers laid before Parliament by the Foreign Office in 
1840 and 1841. 



107 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



in all society the standing topic of interest 
was an Englishwoman, Lady Hester Stan- 
hope, who lived in an old convent on the 
Lebanon range, at the distance of about a 
day's journey from the town. The lady's 
habit of refusing to see Europeans added 
the charm of mystery to a character which, 
even without that aid, was sufficiently dis- 
tinguished to command attention. 

Many years of Lady Hester's early wo- 
manhood had been passed with Lady Chat- 
ham at Burton Pynsent, and during that 
inglorious period of the heroine's life, her 
commanding character, and (as they would 
have called it in the language of those days) 
her "condescending kindness" towards my 
mother's family, had increased in them 
those strong feelings of respect and attach- 
ment which her rank and station alone 
would have easily won from people of the 
middle class. You may suppose how deeply 
the quiet women in Somersetshire must 
have been interested when they slowly 
learned by vague and uncertain tidings 
that the intrepid girl who had been used to 
break their vicious horses for them was 
reigning in sovereignty over the wandering 
tribes of western Asia! I know that her 
name was made almost as familiar to me 
in my childhood as the name of Robinson 
108 



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EOTHEN 



Crusoe; both were associated with the spirit 
of adventure, but whilst the imagined life 
of the castaway mariner never failed to 
seem glaringly real, the true story of the 
Englishwoman ruling over Arabs always 
sounded to me like a fable. I never had 
heard, nor indeed, I believe, had the rest of 
the world ever heard, anything like a cer- 
tain account of the heroine's adventures. 
All I knew was that in one of the drawers, 
the delight of my childhood, along with 
the attar of roses and fragrant wonders 
from Hindustan, there were letters care- 
fully treasured, and trifling presents which 
I was taught to think valuable because 
they had come from the Queen of the 
Desert— a Queen who dwelt in tents and 
reigned over wandering Arabs. 

The subject, however, died away, and 
from the ending of my childhood up to the 
period of my arrival in the Levant, I had 
seldom even heard a mentioning of the 
Lady Hester Stanhope; but now wherever 
I went I was met by the name so familiar 
in sound, and yet so full of mystery from 
the vague, fairy-tale sort of idea which it 
brought to my mind. I heard it, too, con- 
nected with fresh wonders; for it was said 
that the woman was now acknowledged as an 
inspired being by the people of the moun- 
109 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



tains, and it was even hinted with horror 
that she claimed to be more than a prophet 

I felt at once that my mother would be 
sorry to hear that I had been within a day's 
ride of her early friend without offering to 
see her, and I therefore despatched a let- 
ter to the recluse, mentioning the maiden 
name of my mother (whose marriage was 
subsequent to Lady Hester's departure), 
and saying that if there existed on the 
part of her Ladyship any wish to hear of 
her old Somersetshire acquaintance, I should 
make a point of visiting her. My letter was 
sent by a foot messenger, who was to take 
an unlimited time for his journey, so that 
it was not, I think, until either the third or 
the fourth day that the answer arrived. A 
couple of horsemen covered with mud sud- 
denly dashed into the little court of the 
locanda, in which I was staying, bearing 
themselves as ostentatiously as though they 
were carrying a cartel from the Devil to the 
angel Michael. One of these (the other 
being his attendant) was an Italian by birth, 
(though now completely Orientalized), who 
lived in my lady's establishment as doctor 
nominally, but practically as an upper ser- 
vant. He presented me a very kind and 
appropriate letter of invitation. 

It happened that I was rather unwell at 
110 



Chapter VIII ] 



EOTHEN 



this time, so that I named a more distant 
day for my visit than I should otherwise 
have done, and after all, I did not start at 
the time fixed. Whilst still remaining at 
Beirut I received another letter from Lady 
Hester; this I will give you, for it shows 
that whatever the eccentricities of the 
writer may have been, she could at least 
be thoughtful and courteous: 

Sir: I hope I shall be disappointed in seeing 
you on Wednesday, for the late rains have ren- 
dered the river Damoor, if not dangerous, at least 
very unpleasant to pass for a person who has been 
lately indisposed, for if the animal swims you 
would be immerged in the waters. The weather 
will probably change after the 21st of the moon, 
and after a couple of days the roads and the river 
will be passable; therefore I shall expect you 
either Saturday or Monday. 

It will be a great satisfaction to me to have an 
opportunity of inquiring after your mother, who 
was a sweet, lovely girl when I knew her. 
Believe me, sir, 
Yours sincerely, 

Hester Lucy Stanhope. 

Early one morning I started from Bei- 
rut. There are no established relays of 
horses in Syria, at least not in the line 
which I took, and you therefore hire your 
cattle for the whole journey, or at all 
events for your journey to some large town. 
Ill 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



Under these circumstances you don't, of 
course, require a functionary empowered to 
compel the supply of horses, and you can 
therefore dispense with a Tatar. In other 
respects the mode of traveling through 
Syria differs very little from that which I 
have described as prevailing in Turkey. I 
hired my horses and mules for the whole 
of the journey from Beirut to Jerusalem. 
The owner of the beasts (he had a couple 
of fellows under him) was the most digni- 
fied member of my party; he was, indeed, 
a magnificent old man, and was called she- 
reef, or "holy"— a title of honor, which, 
with the privilege of wearing the green tur- 
ban, he well deserved, not only from the 
blood of the Prophet that glowed in his 
veins, but from the well-known sanctity of 
his life and the length of his blessed beard. 
Mysseri, of course, still traveled with me; 
but the Arabic was not one of the seven 
languages which he spoke so perfectly, and 
I was therefore obliged to hire another in- 
terpreter. I had no difficulty in finding a 
proper man for the purpose— one Deme- 
trius, or, as he was always called, Dthe- 
metri, a native of Zante, who had been 
tossed about by fortune in all directions. 
He spoke the Arabic well, and communi- 
cated with me in Italian. The man was a 
112 



Chapter VIII ] 



EOTHEN 



very zealous member of the Greek Church. 
He had been a tailor. He had a thoroughly 
Tatar countenance— a countenance so odd 
and ugly that it expressed all his griefs of 
body and mind in the most ludicrous man- 
ner imaginable; he embellished the natural 
caricature of his person by suspending about 
his neck and shoulders and waist quantities 
of little bundles and bags filled with trea- 
sures which he thought too valuable to be 
intrusted to the jerking of pack-saddles. 
The mule that fell to his lot on this journey 
every now and then, forgetting that his rider 
was a saint, and remembering that he was 
a tailor, took a quiet roll upon the ground, 
and stretched his limbs calmly and lazily, 
like a good man awaiting a sermon. Dthe- 
metri never got seriously hurt, but the sub- 
version and dislocation of his bundles made 
hirn for the moment a sad spectacle of ruin, 
and when he regained his legs, his wrath 
with the mule was sure to be very amusing. 
He always addressed the beast in language 
implying that he, a Christian and saint, 
had been personally insulted and oppressed 
by a Mohammedan mule. Dthemetri, how- 
ever, on the whole, proved to be a most able 
and capital servant; I suspected him of now 
and then leading me out of my way in order 
that he might have the opportunity of visit- 
8 113 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter YITI 



ing the shrine of a saint, and on one occa- 
sion, as you will see by and by, he was 
induced, by religious motives, to commit a 
gross breach of duty; but putting these 
pious faults out of the question (and they 
were faults of the right side), he was always 
faithful and true to me. 

I left Saide (the Sidon of ancient times) 
on my right, and about an hour, I think, 
before sunset, began to ascend one of the 
many low hills of Lebanon. On the sum- 
mit before me was a broad, gray mass of 
irregular building, which from its position, 
as well as from the gloomy blankness of 
its walls, gave the idea of a neglected for- 
tress; it had, in fact, been a convent of great 
size, and, like most of the religious houses 
in this part of the world, had been made 
strong enough for opposing an inert resis- 
tance to any mere casual band of assailants 
who might be unprovided with regular 
means of attack; this was the dwelling- 
place of Chatham's fiery granddaughter. 

The aspect of the first court I entered 
was such as to keep one in the idea of 
having to do with a fortress rather than 
a mere peaceable dwelling-place. A num- 
ber of fierce-looking and ill-clad Albanian 
soldiers were hanging about the place 
inert, and striving as well as they could to 
114 



Chapter VIII ] 



EOTHEN 



bear the curse of tranquillity; two or three 
of them were smoking their chibouks, 
but the rest were lying torpidly upon the 
flat stones, like the bodies of departed brig- 
ands. I rode on to an inner part of the 
building, and at last, quitting my horses, 
was conducted through a doorway that 
led me at once from an open court into an 
apartment on the ground floor. As I en- 
tered, an Oriental figure in male costume 
approached me from the farther end of the 
room with many and profound bows, but 
the growing shades of evening prevented 
me from distinguishing the features of the 
personage who was receiving me with this 
solemn welcome. I had always, however, 
understood that Lady Hester Stanhope wore 
the male attire, and I began to utter in Eng- 
lish the common civilities that seemed to be 
proper on the commencement of a visit by 
an uninspired mortal to a renowned prophet- 
ess; but the figure which I addressed only 
bowed so much the more, prostrating itself 
almost to the ground, but speaking to me 
never a word. I feebly strived not to be 
outdone in gestures of respect, put pres- 
ently my bowing opponent saw the error 
under which I was acting, and suddenly 
convinced me that, at all events, I was not 
yet in the presence of a superhuman being 
115 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



by declaring that he was far from being 
" Miladi," and was, in fact, nothing more or 
less godlike than the poor doctor who had 
brought his mistress's letters to Beirut. 

Lady Hester, in the right spirit of hos- 
pitality, now sent and commanded me to 
repose for a while after the fatigues of my 
journey, and to dine. 

The cuisine was of the Oriental kind, 
highly artificial, and, as I thought, very good, 
I rejoiced, too. in the wine of the Lebanon. 

After dinner the doctor arrived with 
Miladi's compliments, and an intimation 
that she would be happy to receive me if I 
were so disposed. It had now grown dark, 
and the rain was falling heavily, so that I 
got rather wet in following my guide through 
the open courts that I had to pass in order 
to reach the presence-chamber. At last I 
was ushered into a small chamber, protected 
from the drafts of air passing through the 
doorway by a folding-screen; passing this, 
I came alongside of a common European 
sofa; there sat the Lady Prophetess. She 
rose from her seat very formally, spoke to 
me a few words of welcome, pointed to a 
chair,— one already placed exactly opposite 
to her sofa, at a couple of yards' distance,— 
and remained standing up to the full of 
her majestic height, perfectly still and 
116 



Chapter VIII ] 



EOTHEN 



motionless, until I had taken my appointed 
place. She then resumed her seat, not pack- 
ing herself up according to the mode of the 
Orientals, but allowing her feet to rest on 
the floor, or the footstool; at the moment 
of seating herself she covered her lap with 
a mass of loose white drapery. It occurred 
to me at the time that she did this in order 
to avoid the awkwardness of sitting in man- 
ifest trousers under the eye of an European, 
but I can hardly fancy now that, with her 
wilful nature, she would have brooked such 
a compromise as this. 

The woman before me had exactly the 
person of a prophetess— not, indeed, of the 
divine sibyl imagined by Domenichino, so 
sweetly distracted betwixt love and mys- 
tery, but of a good, businesslike, practical 
prophetess, long used to the exercise of her 
sacred calling. I have been told by those 
who knew Lady Hester Stanhope in her 
youth that any notion of a resemblance 
betwixt her and the great Chatham must 
have been fanciful; but at the time of my 
seeing her, the large, commanding features 
of the gaunt woman, then sixty years old 
or more, certainly reminded me of the 
statesman that lay dying 1 in the House of 

1 Historically "fainting " ; the death did not occur until long 
afterwards. 

117 



j 

i 
I 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



Lords, according to Copley's picture. Her 
face was of the most astonishing white- 
ness; 1 she wore a very large turban, made 
seemingly of pale cashmere shawls, and so 
disposed as to conceal the hair; her dress, 
from the chin down to the point at which 
it was concealed by the drapery on her lap, 
was a mass of white linen loosely folding— 
an ecclesiastical sort of affair, more like a 
surplice than any of those blessed crea- 
tions which our souls love under the names 
of "dress," and "frock," and "bodice," 
and "collar," and "habit-shirt," and sweet 
" chemisette." 

Such was the outward seeming of the 
personage that sat before me, and indeed 
she was almost bound by the fame of her 
actual achievements, as well as by her sub- 
lime pretensions, to look a little differently 
from the rest of womankind. There had 
been something of grandeur in her career. 
After the death of Lady Chatham, which 
happened in 1803, she lived under the roof 
of her uncle, the second Pitt, and when he 
resumed the government in 1804, she be- 
came the dispenser of much patronage, and 
sole Secretary of State, for the department 
of Treasury banquets. Not having seen 
the lady until late in her life, when she 

1 I am told that in youth she was exceedingly sallow. 

118 



Chapter VIII ] 



EOTHEN 



was fired with spiritual ambition, I can 
hardly fancy that she could have performed 
her political duties in the saloons of the 
minister with much of feminine sweetness 
and patience; I am told, however, that she 
managed matters very well indeed. Perhaps 
it was better for the lofty-minded leader of 
the House to have his reception-rooms 
guarded by this stately creature than by a 
merely clever and managing woman; it was 
fitting that the wholesome awe with which 
he filled the minds of the country gentle- 
men should be aggravated by the presence 
of his majestic niece. But the end was ap- 
proaching; the sun of Austerlitz showed 
the Czar madly sliding his splendid army, 
like a weaver's shuttle, from his right hand 
to his left, under the very eyes— the deep, 
gray, watchful eyes— of Napoleon. Before 
night came the coalition was a vain thing, 
meet for history, and the heart of its great 
author when the terrible tidings came to his 
ears was wrung with grief —fatal grief. In 
the bitterness of his despair, he cried out to 
his niece, and bid her, " ROLL UP THE MAP OF 
EUROPE ! " There was a little more of suf- 
fering; and at last, with his swollen tongue 
(so they say) still muttering something 
for England, he died by the noblest of all 
sorrows. 

119 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



Lady Hester, meeting the calamity in her 
own fierce way, seems to have scorned the 
poor island that had not enough of God's 
grace to keep the "heaven-sent" minister 
alive. I can hardly tell why it should be, 
but there is a longing for the East very 
commonly felt by proud people when goaded 
by sorrow. Lady Hester Stanhope obeyed 
this impulse. For some time, I believe, she 
was at Constantinople, and there her mag- 
nificence as well as her near alliance to the 
late minister gained her great influence. 
Afterwards she passed into Syria. The 
people of that country, excited by the 
achievements of Sir Sydney Smith, had be- 
gun to imagine the possibility of their land 
being occupied by the English, and many of 
them looked upon Lady Hester as a prin- 
cess who came to prepare the way for the 
expected conquest. I don't know it from her 
own lips, or indeed from any certain author- 
ity, but I have been told that she began her 
connection with the Bedouins by making a 
large present of money (five hundred pounds, 
immense in piasters) to the sheik whose 
authority was recognized in the desert be- 
tween Damascus and Palmyra. The pres- 
tige created by the rumors of her high and 
undefined rank, as well as of her wealth and 
corresponding magnificence, was well sus- 
120 



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EOTHEN 



tained by her imperious character and her 
dauntless bravery. Her influence increased. 
I never heard anything satisfactory as to 
the real extent or duration of her sway, but 
I understood that, for a time at least, she 
certainly exercised something like sov- 
ereignty amongst the wandering tribes. 1 
And now that her earthly kingdom had 
passed away, she strove for spiritual power, 
and impiously dared, as it was said, to boast 
some mystic union with the very God of 
very God! 

A couple of black slave girls came at a 
signal, and supplied their mistress, as well 
as myself, with lighted chibouks and coffee. 

The custom of the East sanctions and al- 
most commands some moments of silence 
whilst you are inhaling the first few breaths 
of the fragrant pipe. The pause was broken, 
I think, by my lady, who addressed to me 
some inquiries respecting my mother, and 
particularly as to her marriage; but before 
I had communicated any great amount of 
family facts the spirit of the prophetess 

1 This was my impression at the time of writing the above 
passage an — impression created by the popular and uncon- 
tradicted accounts of the matter, as well as by the tenor of 
Lady Hester's conversation. I have now some reason to 
think that I was deceived, and that her sway in the desert 
was much more limited than I had supposed. She seems 
to have had from the Bedouins a fair five hundred pounds' 
worth of respect, and not much more. [In third Edition.] 

121 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



kindled within her, and presently (though 
with all the skill of a woman of the world) 
she shuffled away the subject of poor, dear 
Somersetshire, and bounded onward into 
loftier spheres of thought. 

My old acquaintance with some of "the 
twelve " enabled me to bear my part (of 
course a very humble one) in a conversa- 
tion relative to occult science. Milnes once 
spread a report that every gang of Gipsies 
was found, upon inquiry, to have come last 
from a place to the westward, and to be 
about to make the next move in an eastern 
direction; either, therefore, they were to 
be all gathered together towards the rising 
of the sun by the mysterious finger of 
Providence, or else they were to revolve 
round the globe for ever and ever. Both 
of these suppositions were highly grati- 
fying, because they were both marvel- 
ous; and though the story on which they 
were founded plainly sprang from the in- 
ventive brain of a poet, no one had ever 
been so odiously statistical as to attempt 
a contradiction of it. I now mentioned the 
story as a report to Lady Hester Stanhope, 
and asked her if it were true. I could not 
have touched upon any imaginable subject 
more deeply interesting to my hearer— 
more closely akin to her habitual train of 
122 



Chapter VIII ] 



EOTHEN 



thinking. She immediately threw off all the 
restraint belonging to an interview with a 
stranger; and when she had received a few 
more similar proofs of my aptness for the 
marvelous, she went so far as to say that 
she would adopt me as her eleve in occult 
science. 

For hours and hours this wondrous white 
woman poured forth her speech, for the 
most part concerning sacred and profane 
mysteries; but every now and then she 
would stay her lofty flight and swoop down 
upon the world again. Whenever this hap- 
pened I was interested in her conversation. 

She adverted more than once to the 
period of her lost sway amongst the Arabs, 
and mentioned some of the circumstances 
that aided her in obtaining influence with 
the wandering tribes. The Bedouin, so 
often engaged in irregular warfare, strains 
his eyes to the horizon in search of a com- 
ing enemy just as habitually as the sailor 
keeps his "bright lookout" for a strange 
sail. In the absence of telescopes a far- 
reaching sight is highly valued, and Lady 
Hester had this power. She told me that 
on one occasion, when there was good rea- 
son to expect hostilities, a far-seeing Arab 
created great excitement in the camp by 
declaring that he could distinguish some 
123 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



moving objects upon the very farthest point 
within the reach of his eyes. Lady Hester 
was consulted, and she instantly assured her 
comrades in arms that there were, indeed, a 
number of horses within sight, but that 
they were without riders. The assertion 
proved to be correct, and from that time* 
forth her superiority over all others in 
respect of far sight remained undisputed. 

Lady Hester related to me this other an- 
ecdote of her Arab life. It was when the 
heroic qualities of the Englishwoman were 
just beginning to be felt amongst the people 
of the desert that she was marching, one 
day, along with the forces of the tribe to 
which she had allied herself. She perceived 
that preparations for an engagement were 
going on, and upon her making inquiry as 
to the cause, the sheik at first affected 
mystery and concealment, but at last con- 
fessed that war had been declared against 
his tribe on account of his alliance with the 
English princess, and that they were now, 
unfortunately, about to be attacked by a 
very superior force. He made it appear that 
Lady Hester was the sole cause of hostility 
betwixt his tribe and the impending enemy, 
and that his sacred duty of protecting the 
Englishwoman whom he had admitted as 
his guest was the only obstacle which pre- 
124 



Chapter VIII ] 



EOTHEN 



vented an amicable settlement of the dis- 
pute. The sheik hinted that his tribe was 
likely to sustain an almost overwhelm- 
ing blow, but, at the same time, declared 
that no fear of the consequences, however 
terrible to him and his whole people, should 
induce him to dream of abandoning his illus- 
trious guest. The heroine instantly took 
her part; it was not for her to be a source 
of danger to her friends, but rather to her 
enemies, so she resolved to turn away from 
the people, and trust for help to none save 
only her haughty self. The sheiks affected 
to dissuade her from so rash a course, and 
fairly told her that although they (having 
been freed from her presence) would be 
able to make good terms for themselves, 
yet that there were no means of allaying 
the hostility felt towards her, and that the 
whole face of the desert would be swept by 
the horsemen of her enemies so carefully 
as to make her escape into other districts 
almost impossible. The brave woman was 
not to be moved by terrors of this kind, 
and bidding farewell to the tribe which had 
honored and protected her, she turned her 
horse's head and rode straight away, with- 
out friend or follower. Hours had elapsed, 
and for some time she had been alone in 
the center of the round horizon, when her 
125 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



quick eye perceived some horsemen in the 
distance. The party came nearer and nearer ; 
soon it was plain that they were making 
towards her, and presently some hundreds 
of Bedouins, fully armed, galloped up to her, 
ferociously shouting, and apparently in- 
tending to take her life at the instant with 
their pointed spears. Her face at the time 
was covered with the yashmak, according 
to Eastern usage; but at the moment when 
the foremost of the horsemen had all but 
reached her with their spears, she stood up 
in her stirrups, withdrew the yashmak that 
veiled the terrors of her countenance, waved 
her arm slowly and disdainfully, and cried 
out with a loud voice, "Avaunt!" 1 The 
horsemen recoiled from her glance, but not 
in terror. The threatening yells of the as- 
sailants were suddenly changed for loud 
shouts of joy and admiration at the bravery 
of the stately Englishwoman, and festive 
gunshots were fired on all sides around her 
honored head. The truth was that the party 
belonged to the tribe with which she had 
allied herself, and that the threatened at- 
tack, as well as the pretended apprehension 
of an engagement, had been contrived for 

1 She spoke it, I dare say, in English ; the words would not 
be the less effective for being spoken in an unknown tongue. 
Lady Hester, I believe, never learned to speak the Arabic with 
a perfect accent. 

126 



Chapter VIII ] 



EOTHEN 



the mere purpose "of testing her courage. 
The day ended in a great feast prepared to 
do honor to the heroine, and from that time 
her power over the minds of the people grew 
rapidly. Lady Hester related this story with 
great spirit, and I recollect that she put up 
her yashmak for a moment, in order to give 
me a better idea of the effect which she pro- 
duced by suddenly revealing the awfulness 
of her countenance. 

With respect to her then present mode 
of life, Lady Hester informed me that for 
her sin she had subjected herself during 
many years to severe penance, and that her 
self-denial had not been without its reward. 
"Vain and false," said she, "is all the pre- 
tended knowledge of the Europeans. Their 
doctors will tell you that the drinking of 
milk gives yellowness to the complexion; 
milk is my only food, and you see if my 
face be not white." Her abstinence from 
food intellectual was carried as far as her 
physical fasting; she never, she said, looked 
upon a book nor a newspaper, but trusted 
alone to the stars for her sublime know- 
ledge; she usually passed the nights in 
communing with these heavenly teachers, 
and lay at rest during the daytime. She 
spoke with great contempt of the frivolity 
and benighted ignorance of the modern 
127 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VTTT 



Europeans, and mentioned, in proof of this, 
that they were not only untaught in astrol- 
ogy, but were unacquainted with the com- 
mon and every-day phenomena produced 
by magic art. She spoke as if she would 
make me understand that all sorcerous 
spells were completely at her command, 
but that the exercise of such powers would 
be derogatory to her high rank in the 
heavenly kingdom. She said that the spell 
by which the face of an absent person is 
thrown upon a mirror was within the reach 
of the humblest and most contemptible 
magicians, but that the practice of such 
like arts was unholy as well as vulgar. 

We spoke of the bending twig by which 
it is said precious metals may be discov- 
ered. In relation to this the prophetess 
told me a story rather against herself, and 
inconsistent with the notion of her being 
perfect in her science; but I think that she 
mentioned the facts as having happened be- 
fore she attained to the great spiritual au- 
thority which she now arrogated. She told 
me that vast treasures were known to exist 
in a situation which she mentioned, if I 
rightly remember, as being near Suez; that 
Napoleon, profanely brave, thrust his arm 
into the cave containing the coveted gold, 
and that instantly his flesh became palsied; 
128 



Chapter VIII ] 



EOTHEN 



but the youthful hero (for she said he was 
great in his generation) was not to be thus 
daunted. He fell back characteristically 
upon his brazen resources, and ordered up 
his artillery. Yet man could not strive with 
demons, and Napoleon was foiled. In latter 
years came Ibrahim Pasha, with heavy guns 
and wicked spells to boot; but the infernal 
guardians of the treasure were too strong 
for him. It was after this that Lady Hester 
passed by the spot, and she described, with 
animated gesture, the force and energy 
with which the divining-twig had suddenly 
leaped in her hands. She ordered excava- 
tions, and no demons opposed her enter- 
prise; the vast chest in which the treasure 
had been deposited was at length discov- 
ered, but, lo and behold! it was full of 
pebbles! She said, however, that the 
times were approaching in which the 
hidden treasures of the earth would be- 
come available to those who had true 
knowledge. 

Speaking of Ibrahim Pasha, Lady Hester 
said that he was a bold, bad man, and was 
possessed of some of those common and 
wicked magical arts upon which she looked 
down with so much contempt; she said, for 
instance, that Ibrahim's life was charmed 
against balls and steel, and that after a 
9 129 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



battle he loosened the folds of his shawl 
and shook out the bullets like dust. 

It seems that the St. Simonians once 
made overtures to Lady Hester; she told 
me that the Pere Enf an tin (the chief of the 
sect) had sent her a service of plate, but 
that she had declined to receive it; she de- 
livered a prediction as to the probability of 
the St. Simonians finding the "mystic mo- 
ther," and this she did in a way which 
would amuse you; unfortunately I am not 
at liberty to mention this part of the wo- 
man's prophecies; why, I cannot tell, but so 
it is, that she bound me to eternal secrecy. 

Lady Hester told me that since her resi- 
dence at Djoun she had been attacked by 
an illness so severe as to render her for a 
long time perfectly helpless; all her atten- 
dants fled, and left her to perish. Whilst 
she lay thus alone, and quite unable to rise, 
robbers came, and carried away her prop- 
erty; 1 she told me that they actually un- 
roofed a great part of the building, and 
employed engines with pulleys for the pur- 
pose of hoisting out such of her valuables 
as were too bulky to pass through doors. 
It would seem that before this catastrophe 

1 The proceedings thus described to me by Lady Hester as 
having taken place during her illness were afterwards re- 
enacted at the time of her death. Since I wrote the words to 
which this note is appended, I received from Warburton an 



130 



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EOTHEN 



Lady Hester had been rich in the possession 
of Eastern luxuries, for she told me that 
when the chiefs of the Ottoman force took 
refuge with her after the fall of Acre, they 
brought their wives also in great numbers; 
to all of these Lady Hester, as she said, 
presented magnificent dresses, but her gen- 
erosity occasioned strife only instead of 
gratitude, for every woman who fancied 
her present less splendid than that of an- 
other with equal or less pretension became 
absolutely furious; all these audacious 
guests had now been got rid of, but the 
Albanian soldiers who had taken refuge 
with Lady Hester at the same time still 
remained under her protection. 

In truth, this half-ruined convent, 
guarded by the proud heart of an English 
gentlewoman, was the only spot through- 
out all Syria and Palestine in which the 
will of Mehemet Ali and his fierce lieuten- 
ant was not the law. More than once had 

interesting account of the heroine's death, or rather of the 
circumstances attending the discovery of the event ; and I 
caused it to be printed in the former editions of this work. 
I must now give up the borrowed ornament, and omit my 
extract from my friend's letter, for the rightful owner has 
reprinted it in "The Crescent and the Cross." I know what 
a sacrifice I am making, for in noticing the first edition of 
this book, reviewers turned aside from the text to the note, 
and remarked upon the interesting information which War- 
burton's letter contained, and the descriptive force with which 
it was written. 



131 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



the Pasha of Egypt commanded that Ibra- 
him should have the Albanians delivered 
up to him, but this white woman of the 
mountain (grown classical, not by books, 
but by very pride) answered only with a 
disdainful invitation to "come and take 
them." Whether it was that Ibrahim was 
acted upon by any superstitious dread of 
interfering with the prophetess (a notion 
not at all incompatible with his character 
as an able Oriental commander), or that he 
feared the ridicule of putting himself in 
collision with a gentlewoman, he certainly 
never ventured to attack the sanctuary, 
and so long as Chatham's granddaughter 
breathed a breath of life, there was always 
this one hillock, and that, too, in the midst 
of a most populous district, which stood out 
and kept its freedom. Mehemet Ali used to 
say, I am told, that the Englishwoman had 
given him more trouble than all the insur- 
gent people of Syria and Palestine. 

The prophetess announced to me that 
we were upon the eve of a stupendous con- 
vulsion, which would destroy the then rec- 
ognized value of all property upon earth, 
and declaring that those only who should 
be in the East at the time of the great 
change could hope for greatness in the 
new life that was then close at hand, she 
132 



Chapter VIII ] 



EOTHEN 



advised me, whilst there was yet time, to 
dispose of my property in poor, frail Eng- 
land, and gain a station in Asia; she told me 
that, after leaving her, i should go into 
Egypt, hut that in a little while I should, re- 
turn into Syria. I secretly smiled at this 
last prophecy as a "bad shot/' because I had 
fully determined, after visiting the Pyra- 
mids, to take ship from Alexandria for 
Greece. But men struggle vainly in the 
meshes of their destiny; the unbelieved Cas- 
sandra was right, after all; the plague came, 
and the necessity of avoiding the quarantine 
detention to which I should have been sub- 
jected if I had sailed from Alexandria forced 
me to alter my route; I went down into 
Egypt, and stayed there for a time, and 
then crossed the desert once more, and came 
back to the mountains of the Lebanon ex- 
actly as the prophetess had foretold. 

Lady Hester talked to me long and ear- 
nestly on the subject of religion, announ- 
cing that the Messiah was yet to come; she 
strived to impress me with the vanity and 
the falseness of all European creeds, as 
well as with a sense of her own spiritual 
greatness: throughout her conversation 
upon these high topics she carefully insin- 
uated, without actually asserting, her hea- 
venly rank. 

133 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



Amongst other much more marvelous 
powers, the lady claimed one which most 
women have, more or less— namely, that of 
reading men's characters in their faces; she 
examined the line of my features very atten- 
tively, and told me the result: this, however, 
I mean to keep hidden. 

One favored subject of discourse was that 
of "race": upon this she was very diffuse 
and yet rather mysterious; she set great 
value upon the ancient French 1 (not Nor- 
man blood, for that she vilified), but pro- 
fessed to despise our English notion of " an 
old family." She had a vast idea of the 
Cornish miners, on account of their race, 
and said if she chose she could give me 
the means of rousing them to the most 
tremendous enthusiasm. 

Such are the topics on which the lady 
mainly conversed, but very often she 
would descend to more worldly chat, and 
then she was no longer the prophetess, 
but the sort of woman that you some- 

» In a letter which I afterwards received from Lady Hester, 
she mentioned incidentally Lord Hardwicke, and said that lie 
was "the kindest-hearted man existing,— a most manly, firm 
character. He comes from a good breed,— all the Yorkes 
excellent, with ancient French blood in their veins." The 
underscoring of the word " ancient "is by the writer^ of the 
letter, who had certainly no great love or veneration for 
the French of the present day : she did not consider them as 
descended from her favorite stock. 

134 



Chapter VIII] 



EOTHEN 



times see, I am told, in London drawing- 
rooms— cool, decisive in manner, unsparing 
of enemies, full of audacious fun, and say- 
ing the downright things that the sheepish 
society around her is afraid to utter. I am 
told that Lady Hester was in her youth 
a capital mimic, and she showed me that 
not all the queenly dullness to which she 
had condemned herself, not all her fast- 
ing and solitude, had destroyed this terrible 
power. The first whom she crucified in my 
presence was poor Lord Byron; she had seen 
him, it appeared, I know not where, soon 
after his arrival in the East, and was vastly 
amused at his little affectations; he had 
picked up a few sentences of the Romaic, 
and with these he affected to give orders to 
his Greek servant in a ton d'apameibomenos 
style; I can't tell whether Lady Hester's 
mimicry of the bard was at all close, but 
it was amusing; she attributed to him a 
curiously coxcombical lisp. 

Another person whose style of speaking 
the lady took off very amusingly was one 
who would scarcely object to suffer by the 
side of Lord Byron— I mean Lamar tine. 
The peculiarity which attracted her ridicule 
was an over-refinement of manner. Accord- 
ing to my lady's imitation of Lamartine (I 
have never seen him myself), he had none of 
135 



! 

i 
I 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



the violent grimace of his countrymen, and 
not even their usual way of talking, but 
rather bore himself mincingly, like the 
humbler sort of English dandy. 1 

Lady Hester seems to have heartily de- 
spised everything approaching to exqui- 
siteness; she told me, by the by (and her 
opinion upon that subject is worth having), 
that a downright manner, amounting even 
to brusqueness, is more effective than any 
other with the Oriental; and that amongst 
the English, of all ranks and all classes, there 
is no man so attractive to the Orientals, no 
man who can negotiate with them half so 
effectively, as a good, honest, open-hearted, 
and positive naval officer of the old school. 

I have told you, I think, that Lady Hester 
could deal fiercely with those she hated; 
one man above all others (he is now up- 
rooted from society) she blasted with her 
wrath; you would have thought that in the 
scornfulness of her nature she must have 

1 It is said that deaf people can hear what is said concerning 
themselves, and it would seem that those who live without 
books or newspapers know all that is written about them. 
Lady Hester Stanhope, though not admitting a book or news- 
paper into her fortress, seems to have known the way in 
which M. Lamartine mentioned her in his book, for in a letter 
which she wrote to me after my return to England she says : 
"Although neglected, as Monsieur Le M." (referring, as I be- 
lieve, to M. Lamartine) "describes, and without books, yet 
my head is organized to supply the want of them, as well as 
acquired knowledge." 

136 



Chapter VIII ] 



EOTHEN 



sprung upon her foe with more of fierceness 
than of skill, but this was not so, for with 
all the force and vehemence of her invective, 
she displayed a sober, patient, and minute 
attention to the details of vituperation, which 
contributed to its success a thousand times 
more than mere violence. 

During the hours that this sort of con- 
versation, or rather discourse, was going 
on our chibouks were from time to time 
replenished, and the lady as well as I con- 
tinued to smoke with little or no intermis- 
sion till the interview ended. I think that 
the fragrant fumes of the latakia must have 
helped to keep me on my good behavior as a 
patient disciple of the prophetess. 

It was not till after midnight that my visit 
for the evening came to an end; when I 
quitted my seat the lady rose and stood up 
in the same formal attitude (almost that of 
a soldier in a state of " attention ") which 
she had assumed on my entrance; at the 
same time she pushed the loose drapery 
from her lap and let it fall down upon the 
floor. 

The next morning, after breakfast, I was 
visited by my lady's secretary— the only 
European, except the doctor, whom she re- 
tained in her household. This secretary, 
like the doctor, was Italian, but he pre- 
137 



| 
i 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



served more signs of European dress and 
European pretensions than his medical fel- 
low-slave. He spoke little or no English, 
though he wrote it pretty well, having been 
formerly employed in a mercantile house 
connected with England. The poor fellow 
was in an unhappy state of mind. In order 
to make you understand the extent of his 
spiritual anxieties, I ought to have told you 
that the doctor (who had sunk into the 
complete Asiatic, and had condescended ac- 
cordingly to the performance of even menial 
services) had adopted the common faith of 
all the neighboring people, and had become 
a firm and happy believer in the divine 
power of his mistress. Not so the secre- 
tary: when I had strolled with him to such 
a distance from the building as rendered 
him safe from being overheard by human 
ears, he told me in a hollow voice, trembling 
with emotion, that there were times at 
which he doubted the divinity of Miladi. 
I said nothing to encourage the poor fellow 
in his frightful state of skepticism, for I 
saw that, if indulged, it might end in posi- 
tive infidelity. Lady Hester, it seemed, had 
rather arbitrarily abridged the amusements 
of her secretary, and especially she had 
forbidden him from shooting small birds on 
the mountain side. This oppression had 
138 



Chapter VIII ] 



EOTHEN 



aroused in him a spirit of inquiry that 
might end fatally— perhaps for himself, 
perhaps for the " religion of the place." 

The secretary told me that his mistress 
was strongly disliked by the surrounding peo- 
ple, and that she oppressed them a good deal 
by her exactions. I know not whether this 
statement had any truth in it; but whether 
it was or was not well founded, it is certain 
that in Eastern countries hate and venera- 
tion are very commonly felt for the same 
object, and the general belief in the super- 
human power of this wonderful white lady, 
her resolute and imperious character, and 
above all, perhaps, her fierce Albanians (not 
backward to obey an order for the sacking of 
a village), inspired sincere respect amongst 
the surrounding inhabitants. Now the being 
"respected" amongst Orientals is not an 
empty or merely honorary distinction, but 
carries with it a clear right to take your 
neighbor's corn, his cattle, his eggs, and his 
honey, and almost anything that is his, ex- 
cept his wives. This law was acted upon 
by the Princess of Djoun, and her establish- 
ment was supplied by contributions appor- 
tioned amongst the nearest of the villages. 

I understood that the Albanians (re- 
strained, I suppose, by the dread of being 
delivered up to Ibrahim) had not given any 
139 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



very troublesome proofs of their unruly na- 
tures. The secretary told me that their ra- 
tions, including a small allowance of coffee 
and tobacco, were served out to them with 
tolerable regularity. 

I asked the secretary how Lady Hester 
was off for horses, and said that I would 
take a look at the stable; the man did not 
raise any opposition to my proposal, and af- 
fected no mystery about the matter, but 
said that the only two steeds which then 
belonged to Miladi were of a very hum- 
ble sort; this answer, and a storm of rain 
then beginning to descend, prevented me 
at the time from undertaking my journey 
to the stables, and I don't know that I ever 
thought of the matter afterwards until my 
return to England, when I saw Lamartine's 
eye-witnessing account of the strange horse 
saddled, as he pretends, by the hands of his 
Maker! 

When I returned to my room (this, as my 
hostess told me, was the only one in the 
whole building that kept out the rain) 
Lady Hester sent to say she would be 
glad to receive me again; I was rather sur- 
prised at this, for I had understood that she 
reposed during the day, and it was now 
little later than noon. "Really," said she, 
when I had taken my seat and my pipe, 
140 



Chapter VIII ] 



EOTHEN 



"we were together for hours last night, and 
still I have heard nothing at all of my old 
friends; now do tell me something of your 
dear mother and her sister; I never knew 
your father— it was after I left Burton Pyn- 
sent that your mother married." I began 
to make slow answer, but my questioner 
soon went off again to topics more sublime, 
so that this second interview, though it 
lasted two or three hours, was all occu- 
pied by the same sort of varied discourse 
as that which I have been describing. 

In the course of the afternoon the cap- 
tain of an English man-of-war arrived at 
Djoun, and Lady Hester determined to re- 
ceive him for the same reason as that 
which had induced her to allow my visit— 
namely, an early intimacy with his family. 
I and the new visitor —he was a pleasant, 
amusing man— dined together, and we 
were afterwards invited to the presence of 
my lady, and with her we sat smoking 
till midnight. The conversation turned 
chiefly, I think, upon magical science. I 
had determined to be off at an early hour 
the next morning, and so at the end of this 
interview I bade my lady farewell. With 
her parting words she once more advised 
me to abandon Europe and seek my reward 
in the East, and she urged me, too, to give 
141 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



the like counsels to my father, and tell him 
that "she had said it" 

Lady Hester's unholy claim to supremacy 
in the spiritual kingdom was, no doubt, the 
suggestion of fierce and inordinate pride 
most perilously akin to madness; but I am 
quite sure that the mind of the woman was 
too strong to be thoroughly overcome by 
even this potent feeling. I plainly saw that 
she was not an unhesitating follower of her 
own system, and I even fancied that I could 
distinguish the brief moments during which 
she contrived to believe in herself from 
those long and less happy intervals in 
which her own reason was too strong for 
her. 

As for the lady's faith in astrology and 
magic science, you are not for a moment to 
suppose that this implied any aberration of 
intellect. She believed these things in 
common with those around her, and it could 
scarcely be otherwise, for she seldom spoke 
to anybody, except crazy old dervishes, 
who at once received her alms and fos- 
tered her extravagances, and even when 
(as on the occasion of my visit) she was 
brought into contact with a person enter- 
taining different notions, she still remained 
uncontradicted. This entourage and the 
habit of fasting from books and newspapers 
142 



Chapter VIII ] 



EOTHEN 



were quite enough to make her a facile re- 
cipient of any marvelous story. 

I think that in England we scarcely ac- 
knowledge to ourselves how much we owe 
to the wise and watchful press which pre- 
sides over the formation of our opinions, 
and which brings about this splendid re- 
sult—namely, that in matters of belief the 
humblest of us are lifted up to the level of 
the most sagacious, so that really a simple 
cornet in the Blues is no more likely to 
entertain a foolish belief about ghosts, or 
witchcraft, or any other supernatural topic, 
than the Lord High Chancellor, or the 
Leader of the House of Commons. How 
different is the intellectual regime of East- 
ern countries! In Syria and Palestine and 
Egypt you might as well dispute the efficacy 
of grass or grain as of magic. There is no 
controversy about the matter. The effect 
of this, the unanimous belief of an ignorant 
people, upon the mind of a stranger is ex- 
tremely curious and well worth noticing. 
A man coming freshly from Europe is at 
first proof against the nonsense with which 
he is assailed; but often it happens that 
after a little while the social atmosphere of 
Asia will begin to infect him, and if he has 
been unaccustomed to the cunning of fence 
by which reason prepares the means of 
143 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter VIII 



guarding herself against fallacy, he will 
yield himself at last to the faith of those 
around him, and this he will do by sym- 
pathy, it would seem, rather than from con- 
viction. I have been much interested in 
observing that the mere "practical man," 
however skilful and shrewd in his own 
way, has not the kind of power that will 
enable him to resist the gradual im- 
pression made upon his mind by the com- 
mon opinion of those whom he sees and 
hears from day to day. Even amongst 
the English, though their good sense and 
sound religious knowledge would be likely 
to guard them from error, I have known 
the calculating merchant, the inquisitive 
traveler, and the post-captain, with his 
bright, wakeful eye of command,— I have 
known all these surrender themselves to 
the really magic-like influence of other 
people's minds; their language at first is 
that they are "staggered," leading you by 
that expression to suppose that they had 
been witnesses to some phenomenon which 
it was very difficult to account for other- 
wise than by supernatural causes; but 
when I have questioned further, I have 
always found that these " staggering " won- 
ders were not even specious enough to be 
looked upon as good "tricks." A man in 
144 



Chapter VIII] 



EOTHEN 



England who gained his whole livelihood 
as a conjurer would soon be starved to 
death if he could perform no better mira- 
cles than those which are v/rought with 
so much effect in Syria and Egypt; some- 
times, no doubt, a magician will make a 
good hit (Sir John once said a "good 
thing but all such successes range, of 
course, under the head of mere "tentative 
miracles," as distinguished by the strong- 
brained Paley. 



10 



145 



CHAPTER 
IX 



The Sanctuary. 



I CROSSED the plain of Esdraelon, and 
entered amongst the hills of beautiful 
Galilee. It was at sunset that my path 
brought me sharply round into the gorge 
of a little valley, and close upon a gray 
mass of dwellings that lay happily nestled 
in the lap of the mountain. There was one 
only shining point still touched with the 
light of the sun, who had set for all besides: 
a brave sign this to "holy " Shereef and the 
rest of my Moslem men, for the one glitter- 
ing summit was the head of a minaret, and 
the rest of the seeming village that had 
veiled itself so meekly under the shades of 
evening was Christian Nazareth ! 

Within the precincts of the Latin con- 
vent there stands the great Catholic church 
which incloses the Sanctuary— the dwelling 
of the Blessed Virgin. 1 This is a grotto of 
about ten feet either way, forming a little 

1 The Greek Church does not recognize this as the true Sanc- 
tuary, and many Protestants look upon all the traditions by 

146 



Chapter IX] 



EOTHEN 



chapel or recess, and reached by descend- 
ing steps. It is decorated with splendor; 
on the left hand a column of granite hangs 
from the top of the grotto to within a few 
feet of the ground; immediately beneath an- 
other column of the same size rises from 
the ground as if to meet the one above; but 
between this and the suspended pillar there 
is an interval of more than a foot; these 
fragments once formed a single column, 
on which the angel leant when he spoke 
and told to Mary the mystery of her awful 
blessedness. Hard by, near the altar, the 
Holy Virgin was kneeling. 

I had been journeying, cheerily indeed, 
for the voices of my followers were ever 
within my hearing, but yet, as it were, in 

which it is attempted to ascertain the holy places of Palestine 
as utterly fabulous. For myself, I do not mean either to affirm 
or deny the correctness of the opinion which has fixed upon 
this as the true site, but merely to mention it as a belief en- 
tertained, without question, by my brethren of the Latin 
Church whose guest I was at the time. It would be a great 
aggravation of the trouble of writing about these matters if 
I were to stop in the midst of every sentence for the purpose 
of saying "so-called," or "so it is said," and would besides 
sound very ungraciously ; yet I am anxious to be literally true 
in all I write. Now, thus it is that I mean to get over my 
difficulty. Whenever in this great bundle of papers, or book 
( if book it is to be ) , you see any words about matters of religion 
which would seem to involve the assertion of my own opinion, 
you are to understand me just as if one or other of the qualify- 
ing phrases above mentioned had been actually inserted in 
every sentence. My general direction for you to construe me 
thus will render all that I write as strictly and actually true 
as if I had every time lugged in a formal declaration of the 
fact that I was merely expressing the notions of other people. 

147 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter IX 



solitude, for I had no comrade to whet the 
edge of my reason or wake me from my 
noon-day dreams. I was left all alone to 
he taught and swayed by the beautiful cir- 
cumstances of Palestine traveling, by the 
clime and the land and the name of the 
land with all its mighty import, by the glit- 
tering freshness of the sward, and the 
abounding masses of flowers that furnished 
my sumptuous pathway, by the bracing and 
fragrant air that seemed to poise me in my 
saddle and to lift me along as a planet 
appointed to glide through space. 

And the end of my journey was Nazareth 
—the home of the Blessed Virgin! In the. 
first dawn of my manhood the old painters 
of Italy had taught me their dangerous 
worship of the beauty that is more than 
mortal, but those images all seemed shad- 
owy now, and floated before me so dimly, 
the one overcasting the other, that they 
left me no one sweet idol on which I could 
look, and look again, and say, " Maria mia! " 
Yet they left me more than an idol— they 
left me (for to them I am wont to trace it) 
a faint apprehension of beauty not com- 
passed with lines and shadows— they 
touched me (forgive, proud Marie of Anjou!) 
—they touched me with a faith in loveliness 
transcending mortal shapes. 

148 



Chapter IX] 



EOTHEN 



I came to Nazareth and was led from the 
convent to the Sanctuary. Long fasting 
will sometimes heat a man's brain and draw 
him away out of the world, will disturb his 
judgment, confuse his notions of right and 
wrong, and weaken his power of choosing 
the right. I had fasted, perhaps, too long, 
for I was fevered with the zeal of an insane 
devotion to the Heavenly Queen of Christen- 
dom. But I knew the feebleness of this 
gentle malady, and knew how easily my 
watchful reason, if ever so slightly pro- 
voked, would drag me back to life; let there 
but come one chilling breath of the outer 
world, and all this loving piety would cower 
and fly before the sound of my own bitter 
laugh. And so as I went I trod tenderly, 
not looking to the right nor to the left, but 
bending my eyes to the ground. 

The attending friar served me well: he 
led me down quietly and all but silently to 
the Virgin's home. The mystic air was so 
burned with the consuming flames of the 
altar, and so laden with incense, that my 
chest labored strongly and heaved with 
luscious pain. There— there, with beating 
heart, the Virgin knelt and listened! I 
strived to grasp and hold with my riveted 
eyes some one of the feigned Madonnas, 
but of all the heaven-lit faces imagined by 
149 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter IX 



men, there was none that would abide with 
me in this the very Sanctuary. Impatient 
of vacancy, I grew madly strong against 
nature, and if by some awful spell, some 
impious rite, I could— Oh! most sweet 
religion that bid me fear God, and be pious, 
and yet not cease from loving! Religion 
and gracious custom commanded me that 
I fall down loyally and kiss the rock that 
blessed Mary pressed. With a half con- 
sciousness, with the semblance of a thrill- 
ing hope that I was plunging deep, deep 
into my first knowledge of some most holy 
mystery, or of some new, rapturous, and 
daring sin, I knelt and bowed down my face 
till I met the smooth rock with my lips. 
One moment— one moment— my heart, or 
some old pagan demon within me, woke up 
and fiercely bounded; my bosom was lifted 
and swung, as though I had touched her 
warm robe. One moment— one more, and 
then the fever had left me. I rose from 
my knees. I felt hopelessly sane. The 
mere world reappeared. My good old 
monk was there, dangling his key with 
listless patience, and as he guided me from 
the church and talked of the refectory and 
the coming repast, I listened to his words 
with some attention and pleasure. 



150 



CHAPTER 
X 



The monks of Palestine, 



WHENEVER you come back to me 
from Palestine, we will find some 
"golden wine " 1 of Lebanon, that 
we may celebrate with apt libations the 
monks of the Holy Land, and though the 
poor fellows be theoretically "dead to 
the world," we will drink to every man of 
them a good, long life and a merry one! 
Graceless is the traveler who forgets his 
obligations to these saints upon earth, 
little love has he for merry Christendom if 
he has not rejoiced with great joy to find 
in the very midst of water-drinking infi- 
dels those lowly monasteries, where the 
blessed juice of the grape is quaffed in 
peace. Aye, aye ! We will fill our glasses till 
they look like cups of amber, and drink 
profoundly to our gracious hosts in Pales- 
tine. 

Christianity permits and sanctions the 

1 "Vino d'oro." 

151 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter X 



drinking of wine, and of all the holy breth- 
ren in Palestine there are none who hold 
fast to this gladsome rite so strenuously 
as the monks of Damascus; not that they 
are more zealous Christians than the rest 
of their fellows in the Holy Land, but that 
they have better wine. Whilst I was at 
Damascus I had my quarters at the Fran- 
ciscan convent there, and very soon after 
my arrival I asked one of the monks to let 
me know something of the spots that 
deserved to be seen: I made my inquiry in 
reference to the associations with which 
the city had been hallowed by the sojourn 
and adventures of St. Paul. "There is 
nothing in all Damascus," said the good 
man, " half so well worth seeing as our cel- 
lars," and forthwith he invited me to go, 
see, and admire the long range of liquid 
treasure that he and his brethren had 
laid up for themselves on earth. And 
these, I soon found, were not as the trea- 
sures of the miser that lie in unprofitable 
disuse, for day by day, and hour by hour, 
the golden juice ascended from the dark 
recesses of the cellar to the uppermost 
brains of the friars. Dear old fellows! in 
the midst of that solemn land their Chris- 
tian laughter rang loudly and merrily, 
their eyes kept flashing with joyful fire, 
152 



Chapter X] 



EOTHEN 



and their heavy woolen petticoats could no 
more weigh down the springiness of their 
paces than the filmy gauze of a danseuse 
can clog her bounding step. 

You would be likely enough to fancy that 
these monastics are men who have retired 
to the sacred sites of Palestine from an 
enthusiastic longing to devote themselves 
to the exercise of religion in the midst of 
the very land on which its first seeds were 
cast, and this is partially, at least, the case 
with the monks of the Greek Church; but 
it is not with enthusiasts that the Catholic 
establishments are filled. The monks of 
the Latin convents are chiefly persons of 
the peasant class from Italy and Spain, who 
have been handed over to these remote 
asylums by order of their ecclesiastical 
superiors, and can no more account for their 
being in the Holy Land than men of march- 
ing regiments can explain why they are in 
"stupid quarters." I believe that these 
monks are for the most part well conducted 
men, punctual in their ceremonial duties, 
and altogether humble-minded Christians; 
their humility is not at all misplaced, for 
you see at a glance (poor fellows!) that they 
belong to the " lag remove " of the human 
race. If the taking of the cowl does not 
imply a complete renouncement of the 
153 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter X 



world, it is, at least in these days, a thor- 
ough farewell to every kind of useful and 
entertaining knowledge, and accordingly 
the low bestial brow and the animal caste 
of those almost Bourbon features show 
plainly enough that all the intellectual vani- 
ties of life have been really and truly aban- 
doned. But it is hard to quench altogether 
the spirit of inquiry that stirs in the human 
breast, and accordingly these monks in- 
quire,— they are always inquiring— inquir- 
ing for "news 5 '! Poor fellows! they could 
scarcely have yielded themselves to the 
sway of any passion more difficult of grati- 
fication, for they have no means of com- 
municating with the busy world, except 
through European travelers; and these, 
in consequence, I suppose, of that rest- 
lessness and irritability that generally 
haunt their wanderings, seem to have al- 
ways avoided the bore of giving any infor- 
mation to their hosts; as for me, I am more 
patient and good-natured, and when I found 
that the kind monks who gathered round 
me at Nazareth were longing to know the 
real truth about the General Bonaparte who 
had recoiled from the siege of Acre, I soft- 
ened my heart down to the good humor of 
Herodotus, and calmly began to " sing his- 
tory," telling my eager hearers of the 
154 



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EOTHEN 



French Empire and the greatness of its 
glory, and of Waterloo, and the fall of Na- 
poleon! Now my story of this marvelous 
ignorance on the part of the poor monks 
is one upon which (though depending on 
my own testimony) I look "with consider- 
able suspicion"; it is quite true (how silly 
it would be to invent anything so witless!), 
and yet I think I could satisfy the mind of 
a "reasonable man " that it is false. Many 
of the older monks must have been in Eu- 
rope at the time when the Italy and the Spain 
from which they came were in act of tak- 
ing their French lessons, or had parted so 
lately with their teachers that not to know 
of " the Emperor " was impossible, and these 
men could scarcely, therefore, have failed 
to bring with them some tidings of Napo- 
leon's career. Yet I say that that which I 
have written is true, the one who believes 
because I have said it will be right (she 
always is), whilst poor Mr. "Reasonable 
Man," who is convinced by the weight of 
my argument, will be completely deceived. 

In Spanish politics, however, the monks 
are better instructed; the revenues of the 
monasteries, which had been principally 
supplied by the bounty of their most Catho- 
lic Majesties, have been withheld since 
Ferdinand's death, and the interests of 
155 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter X 



these establishments being thus closely in- 
volved in the destinies of Spain, it is not 
wonderful that the brethren should be a 
little more knowing in Spanish affairs than 
in other branches of history. Besides, a 
large proportion ol the monks were natives 
of the Peninsula; to these, I remember, 
Mysseri's familiarity with the Spanish lan- 
guage and character was a source of im- 
mense delight; they were always gathering 
around him, and it seemed to me that they 
treasured like gold the few Castilian words 
which he deigned to spare them. 

The monks do a world of good in their 
way, and there can be no doubting that 
previously to the arrival of Bishop Alexan- 
der, with his numerous young family and 
his pretty English nursemaids, they were 
the chief propagandists of Christianity in 
Palestine. My old friends of the Francis- 
can convent at Jerusalem some time since 
gave proof of their goodness by delivering 
themselves up to the peril of death for the 
sake of duty. When I was their guest 
they were forty, I believe, in number, and 
I don't recollect that there was one of them 
whom I should have looked upon as a de- 
sirable life-holder of any property to which 
I might be entitled in expectancy. Yet 
these forty were reduced in a few days to 
156 



Chapter X] 



EOTHEN 



nineteen; the plague was the messenger 
that summoned them to a taste of real 
death, but the circumstances under which 
they perished are rather curious, and 
though I have no authority for the story 
except an Italian newspaper, I harbor no 
doubt of its truth, for the facts were de- 
tailed with minuteness, and strictly corre- 
sponded with all that I knew of the poor 
fellows to whom they related. 

It was about three months after the 
time of my leaving Jerusalem that the 
plague set his spotted foot on the Holy 
City. The monks felt great alarm; they 
did not shrink from their duty, but for its 
performance they chose a plan most sadly 
well fitted for bringing down upon them 
the very death which they were striving to 
ward off. They imagined themselves al- 
most safe so long as they remained within 
their walls; but then it was quite needful 
that the Catholic Christians of the place, 
who had always looked to the convent for 
the supply of their spiritual wants, should 
receive the aids of religion in the hour 
of death. A single monk, therefore, was 
chosen either by lot or by some other fair 
appeal to Destiny; being thus singled out, 
he was to go forth into the plague-stricken 
city, and to perform with exactness his 
157 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter X 



priestly duties; then he was to return, not 
to the interior of the convent, for fear of 
infecting his brethren, but to a detached 
building (which I remember) belonging to 
the establishment, but at some little dis- 
tance from the inhabited rooms; he was 
provided with a bell, and at a certain hour 
in the morning he was ordered to ring it, 
if he could: but if no sound was heard at 
the appointed time, then knew his brethren 
that he was either delirious or dead, and 
another martyr was sent forth to take his 
place. In this way twenty-one of the 
monks were carried off. One cannot well 
fail to admire the steadiness with which 
the dismal scheme was carried through; 
but if there be any truth in the notion that 
disease may be invited by a frightening 
imagination, it is difficult to conceive a 
more dangerous plan than that which was 
chosen by these poor fellows. The anxiety 
with which they must have expected each 
day the sound of the bell, the silence that 
reigned instead of it, and then the drawing 
of the lots (the odds against death being 
one point lower than yesterday) and the 
going forth of the newly doomed man,— all 
this must have widened the gulf that opens 
to the shades below. When his victim had 
already suffered so much of mental tor- 
158 



Chapter X] 



EOTHEN 



ture, it was but easy work for big, bullying 
pestilence to follow a forlorn monk from 
the beds of the dying, and wrench away his 
life from him as he lay all alone in an 
outhouse. 

In most— I believe in all— of the Holy 
Land convents there are two personages so 
strangely raised above their brethren in all 
that dignifies humanity, that their bearing 
the same habit, their dwelling under the 
same roof, their worshiping the same 
God (consistent as all this is with the spirit 
of their religion), yet strikes the mind with 
a sense of wondrous incongruity. The men 
I speak of are the " Padre Superiore " and 
the "Padre Missionario." The former is 
the supreme and absolute governor of the 
establishment over which he is appointed 
to rule; the latter is intrusted with the 
more active of the spiritual duties attach- 
ing to the pilgrim church. He is the 
shepherd of the good Catholic flock whose 
pasture is prepared in the midst of Mussul- 
mans and schismatics; he keeps the light 
of the true faith ever vividly before their 
eyes, reproves their vices, supports them 
in their good resolves, consoles them in 
their afflictions, and teaches them to hate 
the Greek Church. Such are his labors, 
and you may conceive that great tact must 
159 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter X 



be needed for conducting with success the 
spiritual interests of the Church under cir- 
cumstances so odd as those which surround 
it in Palestine. 

But the position of the Padre Superiore 
is still more delicate: he is almost unceas- 
ingly in treaty with the powers that be, 
and the worldly prosperity of the whole es- 
tablishment is in great measure dependent 
upon the extent of diplomatic skill which 
he can employ in its favor. I know not 
from what class of churchmen these per- 
sonages are chosen, for there is a mystery 
attending their origin and the circumstance 
of their being stationed in these convents 
which Rome does not suffer to be pene- 
trated: I have heard it said that they are 
men of great note and, perhaps, of too high 
ambition in the Catholic hierarchy, who, 
having fallen under the grave censure of 
the Church, are banished for fixed periods 
to these distant monasteries. I believe 
that the term during which they are con- 
demned to remain in the Holy Land is from 
eight to twelve years. By the natives of 
the country as well as by the rest of the 
brethren they are looked upon as superior 
beings, and rightly, too, for nature seems 
to have crowned them in her own true way. 

The chief of the Jerusalem convent was 
160 



Chapter X] 



EOTHEN 



a noble creature; his worldly and spiritual 
authority seemed to have surrounded him, 
as it were, with a kind of "court," and 
the manly gracefulness of his bearing 
did honor to the throne he filled. There 
were no lords of the bedchamber, and no 
gold sticks and stones in waiting, yet 
everybody who approached him looked 
as though he were being "presented." 
Every interview which he granted wore the 
air of an "audience "; the brethren, as often 
as they came near, bowed low and kissed 
his hand; and if he went out, the Catholics 
of the place that hovered about the con- 
vent would crowd around him with devout 
affection, and almost scramble for the 
blessing which his touch could give. He 
bore his honors all serenely, as though 
calmly conscious of his power to "bind and 
to loose." 



11 



161 



CHAPTER 
XI 



Galilee, 



NEITHER old " Sacred " 1 himself nor 
any of his helpers knew the road 
which I meant to take from Naza- 
reth to the Sea of Galilee, and from thence 
to Jerusalem, so I was forced to add another 
to my party by hiring a guide. The associa- 
tions of Nazareth, as well as my kind feeling 
towards the hospitable monks, whose guest 
I had been, inclined me to set at naught 
the advice which I had received against 
employing Christians. I accordingly en- 
gaged a lithe, active young Nazarene who 
was recommended to me by the monks, 
and who affected to be familiar with the 
line of country through which I intended to 
pass. My disregard of the popular preju- 
dices against Christians was not justified in 
this particular instance by the result of my 
choice. This you will see by and by. 

I passed by Cana and the house of the 



1 Shereef. 

162 



Chapter XI] 



EOTHEN 



marriage feast prolonged by miraculous 
wine. I came to the field in which our 
Saviour had rebuked the Scotch Sabbath- 
keepers of that period by suffering his 
disciples to pluck corn on the Lord's day. 
I rode over the ground where the fainting 
multitude had been fed, and they showed me 
some massive fragments— the relics, they 
said, of that wondrous banquet now turned 
into stone. The petrifaction was most 
complete. 

I ascended the height where our Lord 
was standing when he wrought the miracle. 
The hill rose lofty enough to show me the 
fairness of the land on all sides, but I have 
an ancient love for the mere features of a 
lake, and so, forgetting all else when I 
reached the summit, I looked away eagerly 
to the eastward. There she lay— the Sea of 
Galilee. Less stern than Wastwater, less 
fair than gentle Windermere, she had still 
the winning ways of an English lake; she 
caught from the smiling heavens unceasing 
light and changeful phases of beauty, and 
with all this brightness on her face, she yet 
clung fondly to the dull he-looking mountain 
at her side, as though she would 

" Soothe him with her finer fancies, 
Touch him with her lighter thought." 1 

1 Tennyson. 

163 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XI 



If one might judge of men's real thoughts 
by their writings, it would seem that there 
are people who can visit an interesting 
locality and follow up continuously the 
exact train of thought that ought to be 
suggested by the historical associations of 
the place. A person of this sort can go to 
Athens and think of nothing later than the 
age of Pericles; can live with the Scipios as 
long as he stays in Rome. I am not thus 
docile : it is only by snatches and for few 
moments together that I can really associate 
a place with its proper history. 

"There at Tiberias, and along this west- 
ern shore towards the north, and upon the 
bosom, too, of the lake, our Saviour and his 
disciples—" Away flew those recollections 
and my mind strained eastward, because 
that that farthest shore was the end of the 
world that belongs to man the dweller— 
the beginning of the other and veiled world 
that is held by the strange race, whose life 
(like the pastime of Satan) is a "going to 
and fro upon the face of the earth." From 
those gray hills right away to the gates of 
Bagdad stretched forth the mysterious 
"Desert"— not a pale, void, sandy tract, 
but a land abounding in rich pastures; a 
land without cities or towns, without any 
" respectable " people, or any " respectable " 
164 



Chapter XI ] 



EOTHEN 



things, yet yielding its eighty thousand 
cavalry to the beck of a few old men. But 
once more— "Tiberias— the plain of Gen- 
nesareth— the very earth on which I stood 
—that the deep, low tones of the Saviour's 
voice should have gone forth into Eter- 
nity from out of the midst of these hills 
and these valleys ! " Aye, aye ! but yet again 
the calm face of the lake was uplifted 
and smiled upon my eyes with such fa- 
miliar gaze that the "deep low tones" 
were hushed, the listening multitudes all 
passed away, and instead there came to 
me a loving thought from over the seas in 
England— a thought more sweet than Gos- 
pel to a wilful mortal like this. 

I went to Tiberias and soon got afloat 
upon the water. In the evening I took up 
my quarters in the Catholic church, and, 
the building being large enough, the whole 
of my people were admitted to the benefit of 
the same shelter. With portmanteaus and 
carpet-bags and books and maps and fra- 
grant tea, Mysseri soon made me a home on 
the southern side of the church. One of 
old Shereef's helpers was an enthusiastic 
Catholic, and was greatly delighted at hav- 
ing so sacred a lodging. He lit up the altar 
with a number of tapers, and when his 
preparations were complete he began to 
165 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XI 



perform strange orisons: his lips muttered 
the prayers of the Latin Church, but he 
bowed himself down and laid his forehead to 
the stones beneath him, after the manner of 
a Mussulman. The universal aptness of a 
religious system for all stages of civilization, 
and for all sorts and conditions of men, well 
befits its claim of divine origin. She is of 
all nations and of all times, that wonderful 
Church of Rome! 

Tiberias is one of the four holy cities, 1 
according to the Talmud, and it is from this 
place, or the immediate neighborhood of it, 
that the Messiah is to arise. 

Except at Jerusalem, never think of at- 
tempting to sleep in a "holy city." Old 
Jews from all parts of the world go to lay 
their bones upon the sacred soil, and since 
these people never return to their homes, 
it follows that any domestic vermin they 
may bring with them are likely to become 
permanently resident, so that the popula- 
tion is continually increasing. No recent 
census had been taken when I was at Tibe- 
rias, but I know that the congregation of 
fleas which attended at my church alone 
must have been something enormous. It 
was a carnal, self-seeking congregation, 

1 The other three cities held holy by Jews are Jerusalem, 
Hebron, and Safet. 



166 



Chapter XI] 



EOTHEN 



wholly inattentive to the service which was 
going on, and devoted to the one object of 
having my blood. The fleas of all nations 
were there. The smug, steady, importu- 
nate flea from Holywell street; the pert, 
jumping "puce" from hungry France; the 
wary, watchful "pulce," with his poisoned 
stiletto; the vengeful "pulga" of Castile, 
with his ugly knife; the German " floh," 
with his knife and fork, insatiate, not ris- 
ing from table; whole swarms from all the 
Russias and Asiatic hordes unnumbered,— 
all these were there, and all rejoiced in one 
great international feast. I could no more 
defend myself against my enemies than if I 
had been pain a discretion in the hands of 
a French communist. After passing a night 
like this you are glad to gather up the re- 
mains of your body long, long before morn- 
ing dawns. Your skin is scorched, your 
temples throb, your lips feel withered and 
dried, your burning eyeballs are screwed 
inwards against the brain. You have no 
hope but only in the saddle and the fresh- 
ness of the morning air. 



167 



CHAPTER 
XII 



My first bivouac. 



THE course of the Jordan is from the 
north to the south, and in that direc- 
tion, with very little of devious wind- 
ing, it carries the shining waters of Galilee 
straight down into the solitudes of the Dead 
Sea. Speaking roughly, the river in that 
meridian is a boundary between the people 
living under roofs and the tented tribes 
that wander on the farther side. And so, 
as I went down in my way from Tiberias 
towards Jerusalem along the western bank 
of the stream, my thinking all propended 
to the ancient world of herdsmen and 
warriors that lay so close over my bridle- 
arm. 

If a man and an Englishman be not born 
of his mother with a Chiffney-bit in his 
mouth, there comes to him a time for loath- 
ing the wearisome ways of society— a time 
for not liking tamed people— a time for not 
sitting in pews— a time for impugning the 
168 



Chapter Xn] 



EOTHEN 



foregone opinions of men, and haughtily 
dividing truth from falsehood— a time, in 
short, for questioning, scoffing, and railing, 
for speaking lightly of the very opera and 
all our most cherished institutions. It is 
from nineteen to two or three and twenty, 
perhaps, that this war of the man against 
men is like to be waged most sullenly. You 
are yet in this smiling England, but you find 
yourself bending away to the dark sides of 
her mountains, climbing the dizzy crags, 
exulting in the fellowship of mists and 
clouds, and watching the storms how they 
gather, or proving the mettle of your mare 
upon the broad and dreary downs, because 
that you feel congenially with the yet un- 
parceled earth. A little while you are free 
and unlabeled like the ground that you com- 
pass, but Civilization is watching to throw 
her lasso; you will be surejy inclosed, and 
sooner or later brought dQ ia i to a state of 
mere usefulness, your gr a s hills will be 
curiously sliced into acres -n-nd roods and 
perches, and you, for all you sit so wilful in 
your saddle, you will be caught, you will be 
taken up from travel as a colt from grass, to 
be trained and tried and matched and run. 
This in time, but first come Continental 
tours and the moody longing for Eastern 
travel: the downs and the moors of England 
169 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XII 



can hold you no longer; with larger stride 
you hurst away from these slips and patches 
of free land, you thread your path through 
the crowds of Europe, and at last on the 
banks of Jordan you joyfully know that you 
are upon the very frontier of all accustomed 
respectabilities. There, on the other side 
of the river (you can swim it with one arm), 
there reigns the people that will be like to 
put you to death for not being a vagrant, 
for not being a robber, for not being armed 
and houseless. There is comfort in that— 
health, comfort, and strength to one who is 
aching from very weariness of that poor, 
dear, middle-aged, deserving, accomplished, 
pedantic, and painstaking governess, Europe. 

I had ridden for some hours along the 
right bank of Jordan, when I came to the 
Djesr el Medjame (an old Roman bridge, I 
believe), which crossed the river. My Naza- 
rene guide wa iriding ahead of the party, 
and now, to nt surprise and delight, he 
turned lef twai Is and led on over the bridge. 
I knew that the true road to Jerusalem 
must be mainly by the right bank of Jor- 
dan, but I supposed that my guide was 
crossing the bridge at this spot in order to 
avoid some bend in the river, and that he 
knew of a ford lower down by which we 
should regain the western bank. I made 
170 



Chapter XII] 



EOTHEN 



no question about the road, for I was but 
too glad to set my horse's hoofs upon the 
land of the wandering tribes. None of my 
people, except the Nazarene, knew the coun- 
try. On we went through rich pastures 
upon the eastern side of the water. I 
looked for the expected bend of the river, 
but, far as I could see, it kept a straight 
southerly course; I still left my guide un- 
questioned. 

The Jordan is not a perfectly accurate 
boundary betwixt roofs and tents, for soon 
after passing the bridge I came upon a clus- 
ter of huts. Some time afterwards the guide, 
upon being closely questioned by my ser- 
vants, confessed that the village which we 
had left behind was the la st that we should 
see, but he declared that he knew a spot at 
which we should find an encampment of 
friendly Bedouins, who would receive me 
with all hospitality. I had long deter- 
mined not to leave the East without see- 
ing something of the wandering tribes, but 
I had looked forward to this as a pleasure 
to be found in the desert between El Arish 
and Egypt; I had no idea that the Bedouins 
on the east of Jordan were accessible. My 
delight was so great at the near prospect 
of bread and salt in the tent of an Arab 
warrior, that I wilfully allowed my guide to 
171 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XII 



go on and mislead me; I saw that he was 
taking me out of the straight route towards 
Jerusalem, and was drawing me into the 
midst of the Bedouins, but the idea of his 
betraying me seemed (I know not why) so 
utterly absurd that I could not entertain it 
for a moment; I fancied it possible that the 
fellow had taken me out of my route in or- 
der to attempt some little mercantile en- 
terprise with the tribe for which he was 
seeking, and I was glad of the opportunity 
which I might thus gain of coming in con- 
tact with the wanderers. 

Not long after passing the village a 
horseman met us; it appeared that some 
of the cavalry of Ibrahim Pasha had crossed 
the river for the sake of the rich pastures 
on the eastern bank, and that this man 
was one of the troopers; he stopped and 
saluted; he was obviously surprised at 
meeting an unarmed or half-armed caval- 
cade, and at last he fairly told us that we 
were on the wrong side of the river, and 
that if we went on we must lay our ac- 
count with falling amongst robbers. All 
this while, and throughout the day, my 
Nazarene kept well ahead of the party, and 
was constantly up in his stirrups, straining 
forward, and searching the distance for 
some objects which still remained unseen. 
172 



Chapter XII] 



EOTHEN 



For the rest of the day we saw no human 
being; we pushed on eagerly in the hope 
of coming up with the Bedouins before 
nightfall. Night came, and we still went 
on in our way till about ten o'clock. Then 
the thorough darkness of the night and 
the weariness of our beasts (they had al- 
ready done two good days' journey in one) 
forced us to determine upon coming to a 
standstill. Upon the heights to the east- 
ward we saw lights; these shone from 
caves on the mountain side, inhabited, as 
the Nazarene told us, by rascals of a low 
sort— not real Bedouins— men whom we 
might frighten into harmlessness, but from 
whom there was no willing hospitality to 
be expected. 

We heard at a little distance the brawl- 
ing of a rivulet, and on the banks of this it 
was determined to establish our bivouac; 
we soon found the stream, and following 
its course for a few yards, came to a spot 
which was thought to' be fit for our pur- 
pose. It was a sharply cold night in Feb- 
ruary, and when I dismounted I found 
myself standing upon some wet, rank herb- 
age that promised ill for the comfort of 
our resting-place. I had bad hopes of a 
fire, for the pitchy darkness of the night 
was a great obstacle to any successful 
173 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XII 



search for fuel, and, besides, the boughs of 
trees or bushes would be so full of sap in 
this early spring that they would not easily 
burn. However, we were not likely to sub- 
mit to a dark and cold bivouac without 
an effort, and my fellows groped forward 
through the darkness till, after advancing 
a few paces, they were happily stopped by 
a complete barrier of dead, prickly bushes. 
Before our swords could be drawn to reap 
this welcome harvest, it was found to our 
surprise that the fuel was already hewn and 
strewed along the ground in a thick mass. 
A spot for the fire was found with some diffi- 
culty, for the earth was moist and the grass 
high and rank. At last there was a clicking 
of flint and steel, and presently there stood 
out from darkness one of the tawny faces 
of my muleteers bent down to near the 
ground, and suddenly lit up by the glowing 
of the spark, whichthe courted with care- 
ful breath. Before long there was a par- 
ticle of dry fiber or leaf that kindled to a 
tiny flame; then another was lit from that, 
and then another. Then small, crisp twigs, 
little bigger than bodkins, were laid athwart 
the glowing fire. The swelling cheeks of 
the muleteer, laid level with the earth, blew 
tenderly at first, then more boldly, and the 
young flame was daintily nursed and fed, 
174 



Chapter XII] 



EOTHEN 



and fed more plentifully till it gained good 
strength. At last a whole armful of dry 
bushes was piled up over the fire, and pres- 
ently, with a loud, cheery cracking and 
crackling, a royal tall blaze shot up from 
the earth, and showed me once more the 
shapes and faces of my men, and the dim 
outlines of the horses and mules that stood 
grazing hard by. 

My servants busied themselves in un- 
packing the baggage, as though we had 
arrived at an hotel; Shereef and his help- 
ers unsaddled their cattle. We had left 
Tiberias without the slightest idea that we 
were to make our way to Jerusalem along 
the desolate side of the Jordan, and my 
servants (generally provident in those mat- 
ters) had brought with them only, I think, 
some unleavened bread and a rocky frag- 
ment of goat's-milk cheese. These trea- 
sures were produced. Tea and the con- 
trivances for making it were always a 
standing part of my baggage. My men 
gathered in circle around the fire. The 
Nazarene was in a false position from having 
misled us so strangely, and he would have 
shrunk back— poor devil!— into the cold 
and outer darkness, but I made him draw 
near and share the luxuries of the night. 
My quilt and my pelisse were spread, and 
175 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XII 



the rest of my people had all their capotes, 
or pelisses, or robes of some sort, which 
furnished their couches. The men gath- 
ered in circle, some kneeling, some sitting, 
some lying reclined around our common 
hearth. Sometimes on one, sometimes on 
another, the flickering light would glare 
more fiercely. Sometimes it was the good 
Shereef that seemed the foremost, as he 
sat with venerable beard, the image of 
manly piety, unknowing of all geography, 
unknowing where he was or whither he 
might go, but trusting in the goodness of 
God, and the clenching power of fate, and 
the good star of the Englishman. Some- 
times, like marble, the classic face of the 
Greek Mysseri would catch the sudden 
light, and then again, by turns, the ever- 
perturbed Dthemetri, with his odd China- 
man's eye and bristling, terrier-like mus- 
tache, shone forth illustrious. 

I always liked the men who attended me 
on these Eastern travels, for they were all 
of them brave, cheery-hearted fellows, and 
although their following my career brought 
upon them a pretty large share of those 
toils and hardships which are so much 
more amusing to gentlemen than to ser- 
vants, yet not one of them ever uttered or 
hinted a syllable of complaint, or even af- 
176 



Chapter XII] 



EOTHEN 



fected to put on an air of resignation. I 
always liked them, but never, perhaps, so 
much as when they were thus grouped to- 
gether under the light of the bivouac fire. 
I felt towards them as my comrades rather 
than as my servants, and took delight in 
breaking bread with them and merrily 
passing the cup. 

The love of tea is a glad source of fellow- 
feeling between the Englishman and the 
Asiatic; in Persia it is drunk by all, and al- 
though it is a luxury that is rarely within 
the reach of the Osmanlis, there are few 
of them who do not know and love the 
blessed tchai. Our camp-kettle, filled from 
the brook, hummed doubtfully for a while, 
then busily bubbled under the sidelong 
glare of the flames; cups clinked and rat- 
tled, the fragrant steam ascended, and 
soon this little circlet in the wilderness 
grew warm and genial as my lady's draw- 
ing-room. 

And after this there came the chibouk- 
great comforter of those that are hungry 
and wayworn. And it has this virtue— it 
helps to destroy the gene and awkwardness 
which one sometimes feels at being in com- 
pany with one's dependents; for whilst the 
amber is at your lips there is nothing un- 
gracious in your remaining silent, or speak- 
12 177 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XII 



ing pithily in short, inter-whiff sentences. 
And for us that night there was pleasant 
and plentiful matter of talk; for the where 
we should be on the morrow, and the where- 
withal we should be fed, whether by some 
ford we should regain the western bank of 
Jordan, or find bread and salt under the tents 
of a wandering tribe, or whether we should 
fall into the hands of the Philistines, and so 
come to see Death, the last and greatest 
of all the "fine sights " that there be— these 
were questionings not dull nor wearisome to 
us, for we were all concerned in the an- 
swers. And it was not an all-imagined 
morrow that we probed with our sharp 
guesses, for the lights of those low Philis- 
tines—the men of the caves— still shone on 
the rock above, and we knew by their yells 
that the fire of our bivouac had shown us. 

At length we thought it well to seek for 
sleep. Our plans were laid for keeping up 
a good watch through the night. My quilt, 
and my pelisse, and my cloak were spread 
out so that I might lie spokewise, with my 
feet towards the central fire. I wrapped my 
limbs daintily round, and gave myself 
orders to sleep like a veteran soldier. But 
I found that my attempt to sleep upon the 
earth that God gave me was more new 
and strange than I had fancied it. I had 
178 



Chapter XII ] 



EOTHEN 



grown used to the scene which was before 
me whilst I was sitting or reclining by the 
side of the fire, but now that I laid myself 
down at full length, it was the deep black 
mystery of the heavens that hung over my 
eyes— not an earthly thing in the way from 
my own very forehead right up to the end of 
all space. I grew proud of my boundless bed- 
chamber. I might have "found sermons " 
in all this greatness (if I had I should surely 
have slept), but such was not then my way. 
If this cherished self of mine had built the 
universe, I should have dwelt with delight 
on the "wonders of creation." As it was, I 
felt rather the vainglory of my promotion 
from out of mere rooms and houses into 
the midst of that grand, dark, infinite palace. 

And then, too, my head, far from the fire, 
was in cold latitudes, and it seemed to me 
strange that I should be lying so still and 
passive, whilst the sharp night breeze 
walked free over my cheek, and the cold 
damp clung to my hair, as though my face 
grew in the earth, and must bear with the 
footsteps of the wind, and the falling of 
the dew, as meekly as the grass of the 
field. And so, when from time to time the 
watch quietly and gently kept up the lan- 
guishing fire, he seldom, I think, was un- 
seen to my restless eyes. Yet, at last, 
179 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XII 



when they called me, and said that the 
morn would soon be dawning, I rose from 
a state of half-oblivion not much unlike to 
sleep, though sharply qualified by a sort of 
vegetable's consciousness of having been 
growing still colder and colder for many 
and many an hour. 



180 



CHAPTER 



XIII 



The Dead Sea. 




|HE gray light of the morning showed 



us for the first time the ground we 



JL had chosen for our resting-place. 
We found that we had bivouacked upon a 
little patch of barley plainly belonging to 
the men of the caves. The dead bushes 
which we found so happily placed in readi- 
ness for our fire had been strewn as a fence 
for the protection of the little crop. This was 
the only cultivated spot of ground which we 
had seen for many a league, and I was rather 
sorry to find that our night fire and our cattle 
had spread so much ruin upon this poor, 
solitary slip of corn-land. 

The saddling and loading of our beasts was 
a work which generally took nearly an hour, 
and before this was half over daylight came. 
We could now see the men of the caves. 
They collected in a body, amounting, I 
thought, to nearly fifty, and rushed down 
towards our quarters with fierce shouts and 



181 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XIII 



yells. But the nearer they got the slower 
they went; their shouts grew less resolute 
in tone, and soon ceased altogether. The fel- 
lows, however, advanced to a thicket within 
thirty yards of us, and behind this " took up 
their position." My men without premedi- 
tation did exactly that which was best: they 
kept steadily to their work of loading the 
beasts without fuss or hurry, and whether it 
was that they instinctively felt the wisdom 
of keeping quiet, or that they merely obeyed 
the natural inclination to silence which one 
feels in the early morning, I cannot tell, 
but I know that, except when they exchanged 
a syllable or two relative to the work they 
were about, not a word was said. I now be- 
lieve that this quietness of our party created 
an undefined terror in the minds of the cave- 
holders, and scared them from coming on; 
it gave them a notion that we were relying 
on some resources which they knew not of. 
Several times the fellows tried to lash them- 
selves into a state of excitement which might 
do instead of pluck. They would raise a great 
shout, and sway forward in a dense body 
from behind the thicket; but when they 
saw that their bravery, thus gathered to 
a head, did not even suspend the strap- 
ping of a portmanteau or the tying of a 
hat-box, their shout lost its spirit, and the 
182 



Chapter XIII ] 



EOTHEN 



whole mass was irresistibly drawn back 
like a wave receding from the shore. 

These attempts at an onset were repeated 
several times, but always with the same re- 
sult. I remained under the apprehension 
of an attack for more than half an hour, 
and it seemed to me that the work of pack- 
ing and loading had never been done so 
slowly. I felt inclined to tell my fellows to 
make their best speed, but just as I was 
going to speak, I observed that every one 
was doing his duty already; I therefore held 
my peace, and said not a word, till at last 
Mysseri led up my horse, and asked me if 
I were ready to mount. 

We all marched off without hindrance. 

After some time, we came across a party 
of Ibrahim's cavalry, which had bivouacked 
at no great distance from us. The know- 
ledge that such a force was in the neighbor- 
hood may have conduced to the forbearance 
of the cave-holders. 

We saw a scraggy-looking fellow, nearly 
black, and wearing nothing but a cloth 
round the loins; he was tending flocks. 
Afterwards I came up with another of these 
goatherds, whose helpmate was with him. 
They gave us some goat's milk, a welcome 
present. I pitied the poor devil of a goat- 
herd for having such a very plain wife. I 
183 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XIII 



spend an enormous quantity of pity upon 
that particular form of human misery. 

About midday I began to examine my map, 
and to question my guide; he at first tried to 
elude inquiry, then suddenly fell on his knees 
and confessed that he knew nothing of the 
country. I was thus thrown upon my own 
resources, and calculating that on the pre- 
ceding day we had nearly performed a two 
days' journey, I concluded that the Dead 
Sea must be near. In this I was right, for 
at about three or four o'clock in the after- 
noon I caught a first sight of its dismal face. 

I went on and came near to those waters 
of Death. They stretched deeply into the 
southern desert, and before me, and all 
around, as far away as the eye could follow, 
blank hills piled high over hills, pale, yel- 
low, and naked, walled up in her tomb for- 
ever the dead and damned Gomorrah. 
There was no fly that hummed in the for- 
bidden air, but instead a deep stillness; no 
grass grew from the earth, no weed peered 
through the void sand, but, in mockery of 
all life, there were trees borne down by 
Jordan in some ancient flood, and these, 
grotesquely planted upon the forlorn shore, 
spread out their grim skeleton arms, all 
scorched and charred to blackness by the 
heats of the long, silent years. 

184 



Chapter XIII ] 



EOTHEN 



I now struck off towards the debouchure 
of the river; but I found that the country, 
though seemingly quite flat, was intersected 
by deep ravines, which did not show them- 
selves until nearly approached. For some 
time my progress was much obstructed; 
but at last I came across a track leading 
towards the river, and which might, as I 
hoped, bring me to a ford. I found, in fact, 
when I came to the river's side, that the 
track reappeared upon the opposite bank, 
plainly showing that the stream had been 
fordable at this place. Now, however, in 
consequence of the late rains, the river was 
quite impracticable for baggage-horses. A 
body of waters about equal to the Thames 
at Eton, but confined to a narrower chan- 
nel, poured down in a current so swift and 
heavy that the idea of passing with laden 
baggage-horses was utterly forbidden. I 
could have swum across myself, and I might, 
perhaps, have succeeded in swimming a 
horse over. But this would have been use- 
less, because in such case I must have 
abandoned not only my baggage, but all 
my attendants, for none of them were able 
to swim, and without that resource it 
would have been madness for them to rely 
upon the swimming of their beasts across 
such a powerful stream. I still hoped, 
185 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XIII 



however, that there might he a chance of 
passing the river at the point of its actual 
junction with the Dead Sea, and I therefore 
went on in that direction. 

Night came upon us whilst laboring across 
gullies and sandy mounds, and we were 
obliged to come to a standstill quite sud- 
denly upon the very edge of a precipitous 
descent. Every step towards the Dead Sea 
had brought us into a country more and 
more dreary; and this sand-hill which we 
were forced to choose for our resting-place 
was dismal enough. A few slender blades of 
grass, which here and there singly pierced 
the sand, mocked bitterly the hunger of 
our jaded beasts, and with our small re- 
maining fragment of goat's-milk rock, by 
way of supper, we were not much better off 
than our horses; we wanted, too, the great 
requisite of a cheery bivouac— fire. More- 
over, the spot on which we had been so 
suddenly brought to a standstill was rela- 
tively high and unsheltered, and the night 
wind blew swiftly and cold. 

The next morning I reached the debou- 
chure of the Jordan, where I had hoped to find 
a bar of sand that might render its passage 
possible. The river, however, rolled its eddy- 
ing waters fast down to the " sea," in a strong, 
deep stream that shut out all hope of crossing. 
186 



Chapter XIII ] 



* EOTHEN 



It now seemed necessary either to con- 
struct a raft of some kind or else to retrace 
my steps and remount the banks of the 
Jordan. I had once happened to give some 
attention to the subject of military bridges 
—a branch of military science which in- 
cludes the construction of rafts and con- 
trivances of the like sort; and I should have 
been very proud indeed if I could have car- 
ried my people and my baggage across by 
dint of any idea gathered from Sir Howard 
Douglas or Robinson Crusoe. But we were 
all faint and languid from want of food, 
and, besides, there were no materials. 
Higher up the river there were bushes and 
river plants, but nothing like timber, and 
the cord with which my baggage was tied 
to the pack-saddles amounted altogether to 
a very small quantity— not nearly enough 
to haul any sort of craft across the stream. 

And now it was, if I remember rightly, 
that Dthemetri submitted to me a plan for 
putting to death the Nazarene whose mis- 
guidance had been the cause of our diffi- 
culties. There was something fascinating 
in this suggestion, for the slaying of the 
guide was, of course, easy enough, and would 
look like an act of what politicians call 
"vigor." If it were only to become known 
to my friends in England that I had calmly 
187 



EOTHEN * 



[Chapter XIII 



killed a fellow-creature for taking me out 
of my way, I might remain perfectly quiet 
and tranquil for all the rest of my days, 
quite free from the danger of being consid- 
ered "slow"; I might ever after live on 
upon my reputation, like "single-speech 
Hamilton " in the last century, or " single- 
sin " in this, without being obliged to 

take the trouble of doing any more harm 
in the world. This was a great temptation 
to an indolent person, but the motive was 
not strengthened by any sincere feeling of 
anger with the Nazarene. Whilst the ques- 
tion of his life and death was debated, he 
was riding in front of our party, and there 
was something in the anxious writhing of 
his supple limbs that seemed to express a 
sense of his false position, and struck me 
as highly comic. I had no crotchet at that 
time against the punishment of death, but 
I was unused to blood, and the proposed 
victim looked so thoroughly capable of en- 
joying life (if he could only get to the other 
side of the river) that I thought it would 
be hard for him to die merely in order to 
give me a character for energy. Acting on 
the result of these considerations, and re- 
serving to myself a free and unfettered dis- 
cretion to have the poor villain shot at any 
future moment, I magnanimously decided 
188 



Chapter XIII ] 



EOTHEN 



that for the present he should live, and 
not die. 

I bathed in the Dead Sea. The ground 
covered by the water sloped so gradually 
that I was not only forced to "sneak in," 
but to walk through the water nearly a 
quarter of a mile before I could get out of 
my depth. When at last I was able to at- 
tempt to dive, the salts held in solution 
made my eyes smart so sharply that the 
pain I thus suffered, joined with the weak- 
ness occasioned by want of food, made me 
giddy and faint for some moments, but I 
soon grew better. I knew beforehand the 
impossibility of sinking in this buoyant 
water, but I was surprised to find that I 
could not swim at my accustomed pace; 
my legs and feet were lifted so high and 
dry out of the lake that my stroke was 
baffled, and I found myself kicking against 
the thin air instead of the dense fluid upon 
which I was swimming. The water is per- 
fectly bright and clear, its taste detestable. 
After finishing my attempts at swimming 
and diving, I took some time in regaining 
the shore, and before I began to dress I 
found that the sun had already evaporated 
the water which clung to me, and that my 
skin was thickly incrusted with salts. 



189 



CHAPTER 
XIV 



The black tents. 



MY steps were reluctantly turned to- 
wards the north. I had ridden some 
way, and still it seemed that all life 
was fenced and barred out from the desolate 
ground over which I was journeying. On 
the west there flowed the impassable Jor- 
dan, on the east stood an endless range of 
barren mountains, and on the south lay that 
desert sea that knew not the plashing of 
an oar; greatly, therefore, was I surprised 
when suddenly there broke upon my ear the 
long, ludicrous, persevering bray of a don- 
key. I was riding at this time some few 
hundred yards ahead of all my party, ex- 
cept the Nazarene (who by a wise instinct 
kept closer to me than to Dthemetri), and I 
instantly went forward in the direction of 
the sound, for I fancied that where there 
were donkeys, there, too, most surely would 
be men. The ground on all sides of me 
seemed thoroughly void and lifeless, but at 
190 



Chapter XIV] 



EOTHEN 



last I got down into a hollow, and presently a 
sudden turn brought me within thirty yards 
of an Arab encampment. The low, black 
tents which I had so long lusted to see were 
right before me, and they were all teeming 
with live Arabs— men, women, and children. 

I wished to have let my people behind 
know where I was, but I recollected that 
they would be able to trace me by the prints 
of my horse's hoofs in the sand, and hav- 
ing to do with Asiatics, I felt the danger 
of the slightest movement which might 
be looked upon as a sign of irresolution. 
Therefore, without looking behind me, 
without looking to the right or to the left, 
I rode straight up towards the foremost 
tent. Before it was strewed a semicircular 
fence of dead boughs; through this and about 
opposite to the front of the tent there was 
a narrow opening. As I advanced, some 
twenty or thirty of the most uncouth-look- 
ing fellows imaginable came forward to meet 
me. In their appearance they showed no- 
thing of the Bedouin blood; they were of 
many colors, from dingy brown to jet-black, 
and some of these last had much of the 
negro look about them. They were tall, pow- 
erful fellows, but repulsively ugly. They 
wore nothing but the Arab shirts, confined 
at the waist by leather belts. 

191 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XIV 



I advanced to the gap left in the fence, 
and at once alighted from my horse. The 
chief greeted me after his fashion by alter- 
nately touching first my hand and then his 
own forehead, as if he were conveying the 
virtue of the touch like a spark of electri- 
city. Presently I found myself seated 
upon a sheepskin, spread for me under 
the sacred shade of Arabian canvas. The 
tent was of a long, narrow, oblong form, 
and contained a quantity of men, women, 
and children so closely huddled together 
that there was scarcely one of them who 
was not in actual contact with his neighbor. 
The moment I had taken my seat, the chief 
repeated his salutations in the most enthu- 
siastic manner, and then the people, having 
gathered densely about me, got hold of my 
unresisting hand and passed it round like 
a claret jug for the benefit of everybody. 
The women soon brought me a wooden 
bowl full of buttermilk, and welcome indeed 
came the gift to my hungry and thirsty 
soul. 

After some time my people, as I had ex- 
pected, came up, and when poor Dthemetri 
saw me on my sheepskin, "the life and 
soul " of this ragamuffin party, he was so 
astounded that he even failed to check his 
cry of horror; he plainly thought that now, 
192 



Chapter XIV] 



EOTHEN 



at last, the Lord had delivered me (inter- 
preter and all) into the hands of the lowest 
Philistines. 

Mysseri carried a tobacco-pouch slung 
at his belt, and as soon as its contents were 
known, the whole population of the tent 
began begging like spaniels for bits of the 
beloved weed. I concluded, from the abject 
manner of these people, that they could not 
possibly be thoroughbred Bedouins, and I 
saw, too, that they must be in the very last 
stage of misery, for poor indeed is the man 
in these climes who cannot command a 
pipeful of tobacco. I began to think that I 
had fallen amongst thorough savages, and it 
seemed likely enough that they would gain 
their very first knowledge of civilization by 
seizing and studying the contents of my 
dearest portmanteaus; but still my impres- 
sion was that they would hardly venture 
upon such an attempt. I observed, in- 
deed, that they did not offer me the bread 
and salt (the pledges of peace amongst wan- 
dering tribes), but I fancied that they re- 
frained from this act of hospitality, not in 
consequence of any hostile determination, 
but in order that the notion of robbing me 
might remain for the present an " open ques- 
tion." I afterwards found that the poor 
fellows had no bread to offer. They were 
13 193 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XIV 



literally "out at grass." It is true that 
they had a scanty supply of milk from 
goats, but they were living almost entirely 
upon certain grass-stems, which were just 
in season at that time of the year. These, 
if not highly nourishing, are pleasant enough 
to the taste, and their acid juices come grate- 
fully to thirsty lips. 



194 



CHAPTER 
XV 



Passage of the Jordan. 

AND now Dthemetri began to enter into a 
/A negotiation with my hosts for a pas- 
M JL sage over the river. I never inter- 
fered with my worthy dragoman upon these 
occasions, because, from my entire igno- 
rance of the Arabic, I should have been quite 
unable to exercise any real control over his 
words, and it would have been silly to break 
the stream of his eloquence to no purpose. 
I have reason to fear, however, that he lied 
transcendently, and especially in represent- 
ing me as the bosom friend of Ibrahim 
Pasha. The mention of that name pro- 
duced immense agitation and excitement, 
and the sheik explained to Dthemetri the 
grounds of the infinite respect which he and 
his tribe entertained for the Pasha. Only a 
few weeks before Ibrahim had craftily sent a 
body of troops across the Jordan. The force 
went warily round to the foot of the moun- 
tains on the east, so as to cut off the re- 
195 

• 

i 

| 

! 
I 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XV 



treat of this tribe, and then surrounded 
them as they lay encamped in the vale; 
their camels, and indeed all their posses- 
sions worth taking, were carried off by the 
soldiery, and moreover the then sheik, to- 
gether with every tenth man of the tribe, 
was brought out and shot. You would think 
that this conduct on the part of the Pasha 
might not procure for his "friend" a very 
gracious reception amongst the people whom 
he had thus despoiled and decimated; but 
the Asiatic seems to be animated with a 
feeling of profound respect, almost border- 
ing upon affection, for those who have done 
him any bold and violent wrong, and there 
is always, too, so much of vague and unde- 
fined apprehension mixed up with his really 
well-founded alarms that I can see no limit 
to the yielding and bending of his mind 
when it is worked upon by the idea of 
power. 

After some discussion the Arabs agreed, 
as I thought, to conduct me to a ford, and 
we moved on towards the river, followed 
by seventeen of the most able-bodied of 
the tribe, under the guidance of several 
gray-bearded elders, and Sheik Ali Djour- 
ban at the head of the whole detachment. 
Upon leaving the encampment a sort of 
ceremony was performed, for the purpose, 
196 



Chapter XV] 



EOTHEN 



it seemed, of insuring, if possible, a happy 
result for the undertaking. There was an 
uplifting of arms, and a repeating of words 
that sounded like formulae, but there were 
no prostrations, and I did not understand 
that the ceremony was of a religious char- 
acter. The tented Arabs are looked upon 
as very bad Mohammedans. 

We arrived upon the banks of the river, 
—not at a ford, but at a deep and rapid 
part of the stream,— and I now understood 
that it was the plan of these men, if they 
helped me at all, to transport me across 
the river by some species of raft. But a 
reaction had taken place in the opinions of 
many, and a violent dispute arose, upon a 
motion which seemed to have been made 
by some honorable member with a view to 
robbery. The fellows all gathered together 
in circle, at a little distance from my party, 
and there disputed with great vehemence 
and fury for nearly two hours. I can't give 
a correct report of the debate, for it was 
held in a barbarous dialect of the Arabic 
unknown to my dragoman. I recollect I 
sincerely felt, at the time, that the argu- 
ments in favor of robbing me must have 
been almost unanswerable, and I gave 
great credit to the speakers on my side for 
the ingenuity and sophistry which they 
197 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XV 



must have shown in maintaining the fight 
so well. 

During the discussion I remained lying 
in front of my baggage, for this had been 
already taken from the pack-saddles and 
placed upon the ground. I was so languid 
from want of food that I had scarcely ani- 
mation enough to feel as deeply interested 
as you would suppose in the result of the 
discussion. I thought, however, that the 
pleasantest toys to play with, during this 
interval, were my pistols, and now and 
then, when I listlessly visited my loaded 
barrels with the swivel ramrods, or drew a 
sweet, musical click from my English fire- 
locks, it seemed to me that I exercised a 
slight and gentle influence on the debate. 
Thanks to Ibrahim Pasha's terrible visita- 
tion, the men of the tribe were wholly un- 
armed, and my advantage in this respect 
might have counterbalanced in some mea- 
sure the superiority of numbers. 

Mysseri (not interpreting in Arabic) had 
no duty to perform, and he seemed to 
be faint and listless as myself. Shereef 
looked perfectly resigned to any fate. But 
Dthemetri (faithful terrier!) was bristling 
with zeal and watchfulness. He could not 
understand the debate, for it was carried 
on at a distance too great to be easily 
198 



Chapter XV] 



EOTHEN 



heard, even if the language had been fa- 
miliar; but he was always on the alert, 
and now and then conferring with men who 
had straggled out of the assembly. At last 
he found an opportunity of making an 
offer which at once produced immense 
sensation: he proposed, on my behalf, that 
the tribe should bear themselves loyally 
towards me, and take my people and my 
baggage in safety to the other bank of 
the river, and that I on my part should 
give such a teskeri, or written certificate 
of their good conduct, as might avail 
them hereafter in the hour of their direst 
need. This proposal was received and 
instantly accepted by all the men of the 
tribe there present with the utmost en- 
thusiasm. I was to give the men, too, a 
"bakshish," that is, a present of money, 
usually made upon the conclusion of 
any sort of treaty; but although the peo- 
ple of the tribe were so miserably poor, 
they seemed to look upon the pecuniary 
part of the arrangement as a matter 
quite trivial in comparison with the tes- 
keri. Indeed, the sum which Dthemetri 
promised them was extremely small, and 
no attempt was made to extort any fur- 
ther reward. 
The council broke up, and most of the men 
199 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XV 



rushed madly towards me, overwhelming 
me with vehement gratulations, and kissing 
my hands and my boots. 

The Arabs then earnestly began their at^ 
tempt to effect the passage of the river. 
They had brought with them a great num- 
ber of skins used for carrying water in the 
desert; these they filled with air, and fas- 
tened several of them to small boughs cut 
from the banks of the river. In this way 
they constructed a raft not more than about 
four or five feet square, but rendered buoy- 
ant by the inflated skins. Upon this a por- 
tion of my baggage was placed, and was 
firmly tied to it by the cords used on my 
pack-saddles. The little raft, with its 
weighty cargo, was then gently lifted into 
the water, and I had the satisfaction to see 
that it floated well. 

Twelve of the Arabs now stripped, and 
tied inflated skins to their loins; six of the 
men went down into the river, got in front 
of the little raft, and pulled it off a few feet 
from the bank. The other six then dashed 
into the stream with loud shouts, and 
swam along after the raft, pushing it from 
behind. Off went the craft in capital style 
at first, for the stream was easy on the 
eastern side; but I saw that the tug was to 
come, for the main torrent swept round 
200 



Chapter XV] 



EOTHEN 



in a bend near the western bank of the 
river. 

The old men, with their long gray grisly 
beards, stood shouting and cheering, pray- 
ing and commanding. At length the raft 
entered upon the difficult part of its course; 
the whirling stream seized and twisted it 
about, and then bore it rapidly downwards; 
the swimmers nagged, and seemed to be 
beaten in the struggle. But now the old 
men on the bank, with their rigid arms up- 
lifted straight, sent forth a cry and a shout 
that tore the wide air, and then, to make 
their urging yet more strong, they shrieked 
out the dreadful syllables, " 'Brahim Pasha! " 
The swimmers, one moment before so blown 
and so weary, found lungs to answer the cry, 
and shouted back the name of their great 
destroyer; they dashed on through the tor- 
rent, and bore the raft in safety to the 
western bank. 

Afterwards the swimmers returned with 
the raft, and attached to it the rest of my 
baggage. I took my seat upon the top of 
the cargo, and the raft, thus laden, passed 
the river in the same way, and with the 
same struggle as before. The skins, how- 
ever, not being perfectly air-tight, had lost 
a great part of their buoyancy, so that I, 
as well as the luggage that passed on this 
201 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XV 



last voyage, got wet in the waters of Jor- 
dan. The raft could not be trusted for 
another trip, and the rest of my people 
passed the river in a different and (for 
them) much safer way. Inflated skins were 
fastened to their loins, and thus supported 
they were tugged across by Arabs swim- 
ming on either side of them. The horses 
and mules were thrown into the water and 
forced to swim over. The poor beasts had 
a hard struggle for their lives in that swift 
stream, and I thought that one of the 
horses would have been drowned, for he 
was too weak to gain a footing on the west- 
ern bank, and the stream bore him down. 
At last, however, he swam back to the side 
from which he had come. Before night all 
had passed the river except this one horse 
and old Shereef . He, poor fellow, was shiv- 
ering on the eastern bank, for his dread of 
the passage was so great that he delayed 
it as long as he could, and at last it be- 
came so dark that he was obliged to wait 
till the morning. 

I lay that night on the bank of the river. 
The Arabs at a little distance from me con- 
trived to kindle a fire, and sat all around in 
a circle. They were made most savagely 
happy by the tobacco with which I supplied 
them, and they soon determined that the 
202 



Chapter XV] 



EOTHEN 



whole night should be one smoking festi- 
val. The poor fellows had only a cracked 
bowl, without any tube at all; but this 
morsel of a pipe they handed round from 
one to the other, allowing to each a fixed 
number of whiffs. In that way they passed 
the whole night. 

The next morning old Shereef was brought 
across. It was strange to see this solemn 
old Mussulman, with his shaven head and 
his sacred beard, sprawling and puffing 
upon the surface of the water. When 
at last he reached the bank, the peo- 
ple told him that by his baptism in Jor- 
dan he had surely become a mere Chris- 
tian. Poor Shereef! the holy man! the 
descendant of the Prophet! He was sadly 
hurt by the taunt, and the more so as he 
seemed to feel there was some foundation 
for it, and that he really might have ab- 
sorbed some Christian errors. 

When all was ready for departure, I wrote 
the teskeri in French, and delivered it 
to Sheik Ali Djourban, together with the 
promised bakshish. He was exceedingly 
grateful, and I parted in a very friendly way 
from this ragged tribe. 

In two or three hours I gained Rihah, a 
village said to occupy the site of ancient 
Jericho. There was one building there 
203 



EOTHEN 



Chapter XV 



which I observed with some emotion, for 
although it may not have been actually 
standing in the days of Jericho, it contained 
at this day a most interesting collection of 
—modern loaves. 

Some hours after sunset I reached the 
convent of Santa Saba, and there remained 
for the night. 



204 



CHAPTER 
XVI 



Terra Santa, 



[HE enthusiasm that had glowed, or 



seemed to glow, within me, for one 



JL blessed moment, when I knelt by 
the shrine of the Virgin at Nazareth was 
not rekindled at Jerusalem. In the stead 
of the solemn gloom and the deep still- 
ness rightfully belonging to the Holy City, 
there was the hum and the bustle of active 
life. It was the "height of the season." 
The Easter ceremonies drew near; the pil- 
grims were flocking in from all quarters, 
and although their objects were, partly at 
least, of a religious character, yet their 
"arrivals" brought as much stir and liveli- 
ness to the city as if they had come up to 
marry their daughters. 

The votaries who every year crowd to the 
Holy Sepulcher are chiefly of the Greek and 
Armenian churches. They are not drawn 
into Palestine by a mere sentimental longing 
to stand upon the ground trodden by our 




205 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVI 



Saviour, but rather they perform the pil- 
grimage as a plain duty, strongly inculcated 
by their religion. A very great proportion 
of those who belong to the Greek Church 
contrive at some time or other, in the 
course of their lives, to achieve the enter- 
prise. Many in their infancy and child- 
hood are brought to the holy sites by their 
parents, but those who have not had this 
advantage will often make it the main ob- 
ject of their lives to save money enough 
for this holy undertaking. 

The pilgrims begin to arrive in Palestine 
some weeks before the Easter festival of 
the Greek Church; they come from Egypt, 
from all parts of Syria, from Armenia and 
Asia Minor, from Stamboul, from Rume- 
lia, from the provinces of the Danube, and 
from all the Russias. Most of these people 
bring with them some articles of merchan- 
dise, but I myself believe (notwithstanding 
the common taunt against pilgrims) that 
they do this rather as a mode of paying the 
expenses of their journey than from a spirit 
of mercenary speculation. They generally 
travel in families, for the women are, of 
course, more ardent than their husbands in 
undertaking these pious enterprises, and 
they take care to bring with them all their 
children, however young. They do this be- 
206 



Chapter XVI ] 



EOTHEN 



cause the efficacy of the rites is quite inde- 
pendent of the age of the votary, and people 
whose careful mothers have obtained for 
them the benefit of the pilgrimage in early 
life are saved from the expense and trouble 
of undertaking the journey at a later age. 
The superior veneration so often excited by 
objects that are distant and unknown shows 
not, perhaps, the wrong-headedness of a 
man, but rather the transcendent power of 
his imagination. However this may be, and 
whether it is by mere obstinacy that they 
force their way through intervening dis- 
tance, or whether they come by the winged 
strength of fancy, quite certainly the pil- 
grims who flock to Palestine from remote 
homes are the people most eager in the 
enterprise, and in number, too, they bear 
a very high proportion to the whole mass. 

The great bulk of the pilgrims make 
their way by sea to the port of Jaffa. A 
number of families will charter a vessel 
amongst them, all bringing their own pro- 
visions: these are of the simplest and 
cheapest kind. On board every vessel thus 
freighted there is, I believe, a priest, who 
helps the people in their religious exercises, 
and tries (and fails) to maintain something 
like order and harmony. The vessels em- 
ployed in the service are usually Greek 
207 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVI 



brigs or brigan tines and schooners, and the 
number of passengers stowed in them is 
almost always horribly excessive. The 
voyages are sadly protracted, not only by 
the land-seeking, storm-flying habits of the 
Greek seamen, but also by the endless 
schemes and speculations forever tempting 
them to touch at the nearest port. The 
voyage, too, must be made during winter, 
in order that Jerusalem may be reached 
some weeks before the Greek Easter. 

When the pilgrims have landed at Jaffa, 
they hire camels, horses, mules, or donkeys, 
and make their way as well as they can 
to the Holy City. The space fronting the 
Church of the Holy Sepulcher soon becomes 
a kind of bazaar, or rather, perhaps, reminds 
you of an English fair. On this spot the 
pilgrims display their merchandise, and 
there, too, the trading residents of the place 
offer their goods for sale. I have never, I 
think, seen elsewhere in Asia so much com- 
mercial animation as upon this square of 
ground by the church door: the "money- 
changers" seemed to be almost as brisk 
and lively as if they had been within the 
temple. 

When I entered the church, I found a 
Babel of worshipers. Greek, Roman, and 
Armenian priests were performing their 

208 



Chapter XVI] 



EOTHEN 



different rites in various nooks and corners, 
and crowds of disciples were rushing about 
in all directions, some laughing and talking, 
some begging, but most of them going 
round in a regular and methodical way to 
kiss the sanctified spots, and speak the ap- 
pointed syllables, and lay down the accus- 
tomed coin. If this kissing of the shrines 
had seemed as though it were done at the 
bidding of enthusiasm, or of any poor sen- 
timent even feebly approaching to it, the 
sight would have been less odd to English 
eyes; but as it was, I felt shocked at the 
sight of grown men thus steadily and care- 
fully embracing the sticks and the stones— 
not from love or from zeal (else God forbid 
that I should have blamed), but from a 
calm sense of duty. They seemed to be, not 
"working out," but transacting, the great 
business of salvation. 

Dthemetri, however (he generally came 
with me when I went out, in order to do 
duty as interpreter), really had in him some 
enthusiasm. He was a zealous and almost 
fanatical member of the Greek Church, and 
had long since performed the pilgrimage, 
so now, great indeed was the pride and de- 
light with which he guided me from one 
holy spot to another. Every now and then, 
when he came to an unoccupied shrine, he 
w 209 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVI 



fell down on his knees and performed de- 
votion. He was almost distracted by the 
temptations that surrounded him. There 
were so many stones absolutely requiring 
to be kissed that he rushed about, happily 
puzzled and sweetly teased, like "Jack 
among the maidens." 

A Protestant, familiar with the Holy 
Scriptures, but ignorant of tradition and the 
geography of modern Jerusalem, finds him- 
self a good deal "mazed" when he first 
looks for the sacred sites. The Holy Sepul- 
cher is not in a field without the walls, but 
in the midst and in the best part of the 
town, under the roof of the great church 
which I have been talking about. It is a 
handsome tomb of oblong form, partly sub- 
terranean and partly above ground, and 
closed in on all sides except the one by 
which it is entered. You descend into the 
interior by a few steps, and there find an 
altar with burning tapers. This is the spot 
held in greater sanctity than any other in 
Jerusalem. When you have seen enough of 
it, you feel perhaps weary of the busy crowd 
and inclined for a gallop; you ask your 
dragoman whether there will be time before 
sunset to send for horses and take a ride to 
Mount Calvary. "Mount Calvary, signor? 
Eccolo! it is upstairs— on the first floor." 
210 



Chapter XVI ] 



EOTHEN 



In effect you ascend, if I remember rightly, 
just thirteen steps, and then you are shown 
the now golden sockets in which the crosses 
of our Lord and the two thieves were fixed. 
All this is startling, but the truth is that the 
city, having gathered round the Sepulcher 
(the main point of interest), has gradually 
crept northward, and thus in great measure 
are occasioned the many geographical sur- 
prises that puzzle the "Bible Christian." 

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher com- 
prises very compendiously almost all the 
spots associated with the closing career of 
our Lord. Just there, on your right, he 
stood and wept; by the pillar on your left 
he was scourged; on the spot just before 
you he was crowned with the crown of 
thorns; up there he was crucified, and down 
here he was buried. A locality is assigned 
to every the minutest event connected with 
the recorded history of our Saviour; even 
the spot where the cock crew when Peter 
denied his master is ascertained, and sur- 
rounded by the walls of an Armenian con- 
vent. Many Protestants are wont to treat 
these traditions contemptuously, and those 
who distinguish themselves from their 
brethren by the appellation of "Bible Chris- 
tians " are almost fierce in their denuncia- 
tion of these supposed errors. 

211 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVI 



It is admitted, I believe, by everybody 
that the formal sanctiflcation of these spots 
was the act of the Empress Helena, the 
mother of Constantine, but I think it is fair 
to suppose that she was guided by a care- 
ful regard to the then prevailing traditions. 
Now, the nature of the ground upon which 
Jerusalem stands is such that the locali- 
ties belonging to the events there enacted 
might have been more easily and perma- 
nently ascertained by tradition than those 
of any city that I know of. Jerusalem, 
whether ancient or modern, was built upon 
and surrounded by sharp, salient rocks, in- 
tersected by deep ravines. Up to the time 
of the siege, Mount Calvary, of course, 
must have been well enough known to the 
people of Jerusalem. The destruction of the 
mere buildings could not have obliterated 
from any man's memory the names of those 
steep rocks and narrow ravines in the midst 
of which the city had stood. It seems to 
me, therefore, highly probable that in fixing 
the site of Calvary the Empress was rightly 
guided. Recollect, too, that the voice of 
tradition at Jerusalem is quite unanimous, 
and that Romans, Greeks, Armenians, and 
Jews, all hating each other sincerely, con- 
cur in assigning the same localities to the 
events told in the Gospel. I concede, how- 
212 



Chapter XVI] 



EOTHEN 



ever, that the attempt of the Empress to 
ascertain the sites of the minor events can- 
not be safely relied upon. With respect, 
for instance, to the certainty of the spot 
where the cock crew I am far from being 
convinced. 

Supposing that the Empress acted arbi- 
trarily in fixing the holy sites, it would 
seem that she followed the Gospel of St. 
John, and that the geography sanctioned 
by her can be more easily reconciled with 
that history than with the accounts of the 
other Evangelists. 

The authority exercised by the Mussul- 
man Government in relation to the holy 
sites is in one view somewhat humbling 
to the Christians, for it is almost as an ar- 
bitrator between the contending sects (this 
always, of course, for the sake of pecuniary 
advantage) that the Mussulman lends his 
contemptuous aid. He not only grants, but 
enforces, toleration. All persons, of what- 
ever religion, are allowed to go as they will 
into every part of the Church of the Holy 
Sepulcher, but in order to prevent indecent 
contests, and also from motives arising out 
of money payments, the Turkish Govern- 
ment assigns the peculiar care of each sa- 
cred spot to one of the ecclesiastic bodies. 
Since this guardianship carries with it the 
213 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVI 



receipt of all the coins deposited by the pil- 
grims upon the sacred shrines, it is strenu- 
ously fought for by all the rival churches, 
and the artifices of intrigue are busily ex- 
erted at Stamboul in order to procure the 
issue or revocation of the firmans by which 
the coveted privilege is granted. In this 
strife the Greek Church has of late years 
signally triumphed, and the most famous of 
the shrines are committed to the care of their 
priesthood. They possess the golden socket 
in which stood the cross of our Lord, whilst 
the Latins are obliged to content them- 
selves with the apertures in which were 
inserted the crosses of the two thieves. 
They are naturally discontented with that 
poor privilege, and sorrowfully look back to 
the days of their former glory— the days 
when Napoleon was emperor, and Sebas- 
tiani ambassador at the Porte. 

Although the pilgrims perform their de- 
votions at the several shrines with so little 
apparent enthusiasm, they are driven to 
the verge of madness by the miracle dis- 
played before them on Easter Saturday. 
Then it is that the heaven-sent fire issues 
from the Holy Sepulcher. The pilgrims 
assemble in the great church, and already, 
long before the wonder is worked, they are 
wrought by anticipation of God's sign, as 
214 



Chapter XVI] 



EOTHEN 



well as by their struggles for room and 
breathing-space, to a most frightful state 
of excitement. At length the Chief Priest 
of the Greeks, accompanied (of all people in 
the world) by the Turkish Governor, enters 
the tomb. After this there is a long pause, 
but at last and suddenly from out of the 
small apertures on either side of the Sepul- 
cher there issue long, shining flames. The 
pilgrims now rush forward, madly struggling 
to! light their tapers at the holy fire. This 
is the dangerous moment, and many lives 
are often lost. 

The year before that of my going to Je- 
rusalem, Ibrahim Pasha, from some whim 
or motive of policy, chose to witness the 
miracle. The vast church was, of course, 
thronged, as it always is on that awful day. 
It seems that the appearance of the fire was 
delayed for a very long time, and that the 
growing frenzy of the people was height- 
ened by suspense. Many, too, had already 
sunk, under the effect of the heat 'and 
the stifling atmosphere, when at last the 
fire flashed from the Sepulcher. Then 
a terrible struggle ensued. Many sank and 
were crushed. Ibrahim had taken his sta- 
tion in one of the galleries; but now, feeling, 
perhaps, his brave blood warmed by the 
sight and sound of such strife, he took 
215 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVI 



upon himself to quiet the people by his 
personal presence, and descended into the 
body of the church with only a few guards. 
He had forced his way into the midst of the 
dense crowd, when, unhappily, he fainted 
away. His guards shrieked out, and the 
event instantly became known. A body of 
soldiers recklessly forced their way through 
the crowd, trampling over every obstacle 
that they might save the life of their 
general. Nearly two hundred people were 
killed in the struggle. 

The following year, however, the Govern- 
ment took better measures for the preven- 
tion of these calamities. I was not present 
at the ceremony, having gone away from 
Jerusalem some time before, but I after- 
wards returned into Palestine, and I then 
learned that the day had passed off with- 
out any disturbance of a fatal kind. It is, 
however, almost too much to expect that 
so many ministers of peace can assemble 
without finding some occasion for strife, 
and in that year a tribe of wild Bedouins 
became the subject of discord. These men, 
it seems, led an Arab life in some of the 
desert tracts bordering on the neighbor- 
hood of Jerusalem, but were not connected 
with any of the great ruling tribes. Some 
whim or notion of policy had induced them 
216 



Chapter XVI ] 



EOTHEN 



to embrace Christianity, but they were 
grossly ignorant of the rudiments of their 
adopted faith, and having no priest with 
them in their desert, they had as little 
knowledge of religious ceremonies as of re- 
ligion itself; they were not even capable of 
conducting themselves in a place of wor- 
ship with ordinary decorum, but would in- 
terrupt the service with scandalous cries 
and warlike shouts. Such is the account the 
Latins give of them, but I have never heard 
the other side of the question. These wild 
fellows, notwithstanding their entire igno- 
rance of all religion, are yet claimed by the 
Greeks, not only as proselytes who have 
embraced Christianity generally, but as con- 
verts to the particular doctrines and prac- 
tice of their Church. The people thus alleged 
to have concurred with the Greeks in re- 
jecting the great Roman Catholic schism, 
are never, I believe, within the walls of a 
church, or even of any building at all, 
except upon this occasion of Easter, and 
as they then never fail to find a row of 
some kind going on by the side of the 
Sepulcher, they fancy, it seems, that the 
ceremonies there enacted are funeral games 
of a martial character, held in honor of a 
deceased chieftain, and that a Christian 
festival is a peculiar kind of battle fought 
217 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVI 



between walls and without cavalry. It does 
not appear, however, that these men are 
guilty of any ferocious acts, or that they at- 
tempt to commit depredations. The charge 
against them is merely that by their way 
of applauding the performance— by their 
horrible cries and frightful gestures— they 
destroy the solemnity of divine service, and 
upon this ground the Franciscans obtained 
a firman for the exclusion of such tumultu- 
ous worshipers. The Greeks, however, did 
not choose to lose the aid of their wild con- 
verts merely because they were a little 
backward in their religious education, and 
they therefore persuaded them to defy the 
firman by entering the city en masse and 
overawing their enemies. The Franciscans, 
as well as the Government authorities, were 
obliged to give way, and the Arabs triumph- 
antly marched into the church. The festi- 
val, however, must have seemed to them 
rather flat, for although there may have 
been some " casualties 99 in the way of eyes 
black, and noses bloody, and women "miss- 
ing," there was no return of " killed." 

Formerly the Latin Catholics concurred 
in acknowledging (but not, I hope, in work- 
ing) the annual miracle of the heavenly 
fire, but they have for many years with- 
drawn their countenance from this exhibi- 
218 



Chapter XVI ] 



EOTHEN 



tion, and they now repudiate it as a trick 
of the Greek Church. Thus, of course, the 
violence of feeling with which the rival 
churches meet at the Holy Sepulcher, on 
Easter Saturday, is greatly increased, and 
a disturbance of some kind is certain. In 
the year I speak of, though no lives were 
lost, there was, as it seems, a tough strug- 
gle in the church. I was amused at hear- 
ing of a taunt that was thrown that day 
upon an English traveler: he had taken his 
station in a convenient part of the church, 
and was no doubt displaying that peculiar 
air of serenity and gratification with which 
an English gentleman usually looks on at a 
row, when one of the Franciscans came by, 
all reeking from the fight, and was so dis- 
gusted at the coolness and placid content- 
ment of the Englishman that he forgot his 
monkish humility, as well as the duties of 
hospitality (the Englishman was a guest at 
the convent), and plainly said: "You sleep 
under our roof, you eat our bread, you drink 
our wine, and then, when Easter Saturday 
comes, you don't fight for us! " 

Yet these rival churches go on quietly 
enough till their blood is up. The terms 
on which they live remind one of the pe- 
culiar relation subsisting at Cambridge 
between " town and gown." 

219 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVI 



The contests waged by the priests and 
friars certainly do not originate with the lay 
pilgrims, for the great body of these are 
quiet and inoffensive people. It is true, 
however, that their pious enterprise is be- 
lieved by them to operate as a counter- 
poise for a multitude of sins, whether past 
or future, and perhaps they exert them- 
selves in after life to restore the balance 
of good and evil. The Turks have a maxim 
which, like most cynical apothegms, carries 
with it the buzzing trumpet of falsehood, 
as well as the small, fine "sting of truth." 
"If your friend has made the pilgrimage 
once, distrust him; if he has made the pil- 
grimage twice, cut him dead!" The cau- 
tion is said to be as applicable to the 
visitants of Jerusalem as to those of Mecca; 
but I cannot help believing that the frail- 
ties of all the hadjis, 1 whether Christian 
or Mohammedan, are greatly exaggerated. I 
certainly regarded the pilgrims to Palestine 
as a well disposed, orderly body of people, 
not strongly enthusiastic, but desirous to 
comply with the ordinances of their re- 
ligion, and to attain the great end of 
salvation as quietly and economically as 
possible. 

When the solemnities of Easter are con- 

1 Hadji— a pilgrim. 

220 



Chapter XVI] 



EOTHEN 



eluded, the pilgrims move off in a body to 
complete their good work by visiting the 
sacred scenes in the neighborhood of Jeru- 
salem, including the wilderness of John 
the Baptist, Bethlehem, and, above all, the 
Jordan, for to bathe in those sacred waters 
is one of the chief objects of the expedi- 
tion. All the pilgrims — men, women, and 
children— are submerged en chemise, and 
the saturated linen is carefully wrapped up 
and preserved as a burial dress that shall 
inure for salvation in the realms of death. 

I saw the burial of a pilgrim; he was a 
Greek— miserably poor, and very old. He 
had just crawled into the Holy City, and 
had reached at once the goal of his pious 
journey and the end of his sufferings upon 
earth. There was no coffin, nor wrapper, 
and as I looked full upon the face of the 
dead, I saw how deeply it was rutted with 
the ruts of age and misery. The priest, 
strong and portly, fresh, fat, and alive with 
the life of the animal kingdom, unpaid or 
ill paid for his work, would scarcely deign 
to mutter out his forms, but hurried over 
the words with shocking haste. Presently 
he called out impatiently: "Yalla! Goor!" 
("Come! Look sharp!"), and then the dead 
Greek was seized. His limbs yielded inertly 
to the rude men that handled them, and 
221 



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[Chapter XVI 



down he went into his grave, so roughly 
bundled in that his neck was twisted by 
the fall— so twisted that if the sharp 
malady of life were still upon him, the old 
man would have shrieked and groaned, and 
the lines of his face would have quivered 
with pain. The lines of his face were not 
moved, and the old man lay still and heed- 
less—so well cured of that tedious life- 
ache that nothing could hurt him now. 
His clay was itself again— cool, firm, and 
tough. The pilgrim had found great rest. 
I threw the accustomed handful of the 
holy soil upon his patient face, and then, 
and in less than a minute, the earth closed 
coldly round him e 

I did not say " Alas! " (Nobody ever does 
that I know of, though the word is so fre- 
quently written.) I thought the old man 
had got rather well out of the scrape of 
being alive, and poor. 

The destruction of the mere buildings in 
such a place as Jerusalem would not in- 
volve the permanent dispersion of the 
inhabitants, for the rocky neighborhood in 
which the town is situate abounds in caves, 
and these would give an easy refuge to the 
people until they gained an opportunity of 
rebuilding their dwellings. Therefore I 
could not help looking upon the Jews of 
222 



Chapter XVI ] 



EOTHEN 



Jerusalem as being in some sort the repre- 
sentatives, if not the actual descendants, of 
the men who crucified our Saviour. Sup- 
posing this to be the case, I felt that there 
would be some interest in knowing how 
the events of the Gospel history were re- 
garded by the Israelites of modern Jerusa- 
lem. The result of my inquiry upon this 
subject was, so far as it went, entirely 
favorable to the truth of Christianity. I 
understood that the performance of the mira- 
cles was not doubted by any of the Jews in 
the place. All of them concurred in attrib- 
uting the works of our Lord to the influence 
of magic, but they were divided as to the 
species of enchantment from which the 
power proceeded; the great mass of the Jew- 
ish people believed, I fancy, that the mira- 
cles had been wrought by aid of the 
powers of darkness, but many, and those 
the more enlightened, would call Jesus " the 
good Magician." To Europeans repudiating 
the notion of all magic, good or bad, the 
opinion of the Jews as to the agency by 
which the miracles were worked is a mat- 
ter of no importance, but the circumstance 
of their admitting that those miracles were 
in fact performed is certainly curious, and 
perhaps not quite immaterial. 

If you stay in the Holy City long enough 
223 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVI 



to fall into anything like regular habits 
of amusement and occupation, and to be- 
come, in short, for the time a "man about 
town 99 at Jerusalem, you will necessarily 
lose the enthusiasm which you may have 
felt when you trod the sacred soil for the 
first time, and it will then seem almost 
strange to you to find yourself so en- 
tirely surrounded in all your daily pur- 
suits by the signs and sounds of religion. 
Your hotel is a monastery, your rooms 
are cells, the landlord is a stately abbot, 
and the waiters are hooded monks. If you 
walk out of the town, you find yourself on 
the Mount of Olives, or in the Valley of 
Jehoshaphat, or on the Hill of Evil Counsel. 
If you mount your horse and extend your 
rambles, you will be guided to the wilderness 
of St. John, or the birthplace of our Saviour. 
Your club is the great Church of the Holy 
Sepulcher, where everybody meets every- 
body every day. If you lounge through 
the town, your Pall Mall is the Via Dolo- 
rosa, and the object of your hopeless affec- 
tions is some maid or matron all forlorn, 
and sadly shrouded in her pilgrim's robe. 
If you would hear music, it must be the 
chanting of friars; if you look at pictures, 
you see Virgins with mis-foreshortened 
arms, or devils out of drawing, or angels 
224 



Chapter XVI ] 



EOTHEN 



tumbling up the skies in impious perspec- 
tive. If you would make any purchases, 
you must go again to the church doors, 
and when you inquire for the manufactures 
of the place, you find that they consist of 
double-blessed beads and sanctified shells. 
These last are the favorite tokens which 
the pilgrims carry off with them. The shell 
is graven or rather scratched on the white 
side with a rude drawing of the Blessed 
Virgin, or of the Crucifixion, or some other 
scriptural subject; having passed this stage, 
it goes into the hands of a priest; by him 
it is subjected to some process for ren- 
dering it efficacious against the schemes of 
our ghostly enemy; the manufacture is then 
complete, and is deemed to be fit for use. 

The village of Bethlehem lies prettily 
couched on the slope of a hill. The sanc- 
tuary is a subterranean grotto, and is com- 
mitted to the joint guardianship of the 
Romans, Greeks, and Armenians: these vie 
with each other in adorning it. Beneath 
an altar gorgeously decorated and lit with 
everlasting fires there stands the low slab 
of stone which marks the holy site of the 
Nativity; and near to this is a hollow 
scooped out of the living rock. Here the 
infant Jesus was laid. Near the spot of 
the Nativity is the rock against which the 
15 225 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVI 



Blessed Virgin was leaning when she pre- 
sented her babe to the adoring shepherds. 

Many of those Protestants who are accus- 
tomed to despise tradition consider that 
this sanctuary is altogether unscriptural— 
that a grotto is not a stable, and that 
mangers are made of wood. It is perfectly 
true, however, that the many grottoes and 
caves which are found among the rocks of 
Judea were formerly used for the reception 
of cattle; they are so used at this day. I 
have myself seen grottoes appropriated to 
this purpose. 

You know what a sad and somber deco- 
rum it is that outwardly reigns through 
the lands oppressed by Moslem sway. The 
Mohammedans make beauty their prisoner, 
and enforce such a stern and gloomy mo- 
rality, or, at all events, such a frightfully 
close semblance of it, that far and long the 
wearied traveler may go without catching 
one glimpse of outward happiness. By a 
strange chance in these latter days, it hap- 
pened that, alone of all the places in the 
land, this Bethlehem, the native village of 
our Lord, escaped the moral yoke of the 
Mussulmans, and heard again, after ages of 
dull oppression, the cheering clatter of so- 
cial freedom, and the voices of laughing 
girls. It was after an insurrection which 
226 



Chapter XVI ] 



EOTHEN 



had been raised against the authority of 
Mehemet Ali that Bethlehem was freed 
from the hateful laws of Asiatic decorum. 
The Mussulmans of the village had taken an 
active part in the movement, and when 
Ibrahim had quelled it, his wrath was still 
so hot that he put to death every one of 
the few Mohammedans of Bethlehem who 
had not already fled. The effect produced 
upon the Christian inhabitants by the sud- 
den removal of this restraint was immense. 
The village smiled once more. It is true 
that such sweet freedom could not long 
endure. Even if the population of the 
place should continue to be entirely Chris- 
tian, the sad decorum of the Mussulmans, 
or rather of the Asiatics, would sooner or 
later be restored by the force of opinion 
and custom. But for a while the sunshine 
would last, and when I was at Bethlehem, 
though long after the flight of the Mussul- 
mans, the cloud of Moslem propriety had 
not yet come back to cast its cold shadow 
upon life. When you reach that gladsome 
village, pray Heaven there still may be 
heard there the voice of free, innocent 
girls. It will sound so dearly welcome! 

To a Christian and thoroughbred Eng- 
lishman not even the licentiousness gener- 
ally accompanying it can compensate for 
227 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVI 



the oppressiveness of that horrible outward 
decorum which turns the cities and the 
palaces of Asia into deserts and jails. So, 
I say, when you see and hear them, those 
romping girls of Bethlehem will gladden 
your very soul. Distant at first, and then 
nearer and nearer, the timid flock will 
gather round you, with their large burning 
eyes gravely fixed against yours, so that 
they see into your brain; and if you imagine 
evil against them, they will know of your 
ill thought before it is yet well born, and 
will fly and be gone in the moment. But 
presently, if you will only look virtuous 
enough to prevent alarm, and vicious 
enough to avoid looking silly, the blithe 
maidens will draw nearer and nearer to 
you, and soon there will be one, the bravest 
of the sisters, who will venture right up 
to your side, and touch the hem of your 
coat, in playful defiance of the danger; and 
then the rest will follow the daring of their 
youthful leader, and gather close round you, 
and hold a shrill controversy on the won- 
drous formation that you call a hat, and 
the cunning of the hands that clothed you 
with cloth so fine; and then, growing more 
profound in their researches, they will pass 
from the study of your mere dress to a se- 
rious contemplation of your stately height, 
228 



Chapter XVI ] 



EOTHEN 



and your nut-brown hair, and the ruddy 
glow of your English cheeks. And if they 
catch a glimpse of your ungloved fingers, 
then again will they make the air ring with 
their sweet screams of delight and amaze- 
ment, as they compare the fairness of your 
hand with the hues of your sunburnt face, 
or with their own warmer tints. Instantly 
the ringleader of the gentle rioters imagines 
a new sin: with tremulous boldness she 
touches, then grasps, your hand, and 
smoothes it gently betwixt her own, and 
pries curiously into its make and color, 
as though it were silk of Damascus, or 
shawl of Cashmere. And when they see 
you even then still sage and gentle, the 
joyous girls will suddenly and screamingly, 
and all at once, explain to each other that 
you are surely quite harmless and innocent 
—a lion that makes no spring, a bear that 
never hugs; and upon this faith, one after 
the other, they will take your passive hand, 
and strive to explain it, and make it a 
theme and a controversy. But the one— 
the fairest and the sweetest of all— is yet 
the most timid; she shrinks from the daring 
deeds of her playmates, and seeks shelter 
behind their sleeves, and strives to screen 
her glowing consciousness from the eyes 
that look upon her. But her laughing sisters 
229 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVI 



will have none of this cowardice; they vow 
that the fair one shall be their complice, 
shall share their dangers, shall touch the 
hand of the stranger; they seize her small 
wrist, and drag her forward by force, and 
at last, whilst yet she strives to turn away, 
and to cover up her whole soul under the 
folds of downcast eyelids, they vanquish 
her utmost strength, they vanquish her 
utmost modesty, and marry her hand to 
yours. The quick pulse springs from her 
fingers and throbs like a whisper upon 
your listening palm. For an instant her 
large, timid eyes are upon you; in an in- 
stant they are shrouded again, and there 
comes a blush so burning that the fright- 
ened girls stay their shrill laughter, as 
though they had played too perilously and 
harmed their gentle sister. A moment, 
and all, with a sudden intelligence, turn 
away and fly like deer; yet soon, again like 
deer, they wheel round and return, and 
stand, and gaze upon the danger, until 
they grow brave once more. 

"I regret to observe that the removal of 
the moral restraint imposed by the pres- 
ence of the Mohammedan inhabitants has 
led to a certain degree of boisterous though 
innocent levity in the bearing of the Chris- 
tians, and more especially in the demeanor 
230 



Chapter XVI] 



EOTHEN 



of those who belong to the younger portion 
of the female population; but I feel assured 
that a more thorough knowledge of the 
principles of their own pure religion will 
speedily restore these young people to 
habits of propriety even more strict than 
those which were imposed upon them by 
the authority of their Mohammedan breth- 
ren." Bah! thus you might chant, if you 
choose; but, loving the truth, you will not 
so disown sweet Bethlehem— you will not 
disown nor dissemble your right good hearty 
delight when you find, as though in a desert, 
this gushing spring of fresh and joyous girl- 
hood. 



231 



CHAPTER 
XVII 



The desert 



GAZA stands upon the verge of the 
. desert, and bears towards it the 
same kind of relation as a seaport 
bears to the sea. It is there that you char- 
ter your camels ("the ships of the desert") 
and lay in your stores for the voyage. 

These preparations kept me in the town 
for some days; disliking restraint, I declined 
making myself the guest of the Governor 
(as it is usual and proper to do), but took up 
my quarters at the caravansary, or khan, 
as they call it in that part of Asia. 

Dthemetri had to make the arrangements 
for my journey, and in order to arm him- 
self with sufficient authority for doing all 
that was required, he found it necessary to 
put himself in communication with the 
Governor. The result of this diplomatic 
intercourse was that the Governor, with his 
train of attendants, came to me one day at 
my caravansary, and formally complained 
232 



Chapter XVII] 



EOTHEN 



that Dthemetri had grossly insulted him. 
I was shocked at this, for the man had 
been always attentive and civil to me, and I 
was disgusted at the idea of his being re- 
warded with insult. Dthemetri was pres- 
ent when the complaint was made, and I 
angrily asked him whether it was true that 
he had really insulted the Governor, and 
what the deuce he meant by it. This I 
asked with the full certainty that Dthe- 
metri, as a matter of course, would deny 
the charge— would swear that a "wrong 
construction had been put upon his words, 
and that nothing was further from his 
thoughts," etc., after the manner of the 
parliamentary people; but, to my surprise, 
he very plainly answered that he certainly 
had insulted the Governor, and that rather 
grossly, but, he said, it was quite necessary 
to do this in order to "strike terror and 
inspire respect." "Terror and respect! 
What on earth do you mean by that non- 
sense ? " " Yes, but without striking terror 
and inspiring respect, he (Dthemetri) would 
never be able to force on the arrangements 
for my journey, and Vossignoria would be 
kept at Gaza for a month!" This would 
have been awkward, and certainly I could 
not deny that poor Dthemetri had succeeded 
in his odd plan of inspiring respect, for at 
233 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVII 



the very time that this explanation was 
going on in Italian, the Governor seemed 
more than ever and more anxiously dis- 
posed to overwhelm me with assurances of 
good will and proffers of his best services. 
All this kindness, or promise of kindness, I 
naturally received with courtesy— a cour- 
tesy that greatly perturbed Dthemetri, for 
he evidently feared that my civility would 
undo all the good that his insults had 
achieved. 

You will find, I think, that one of the 
greatest drawbacks to the pleasure of trav- 
eling in Asia is the being obliged more or 
less to make your way by bullying. It is 
true that your own lips are not soiled by 
the utterance of all the mean words that 
are spoken for you, and that you don't even 
know of the sham threats, and the false 
promises, and the vainglorious boasts put 
forth by your dragoman; but now and then 
there happens some incident of the sort 
which I have just been mentioning, which 
forces you to believe, or suspect, that your 
dragoman is habitually fighting your bat- 
tles for you in a way that you can hardly 
bear to think of. 

A caravansary is not ill adapted to the 
purposes for which it is meant. It forms 
the four sides of a large quadrangular 
234 



Chapter XVII] 



EOTHEN 



court. The ground floor is used for ware- 
houses, the first floor for guests, and the 
open court for the temporary reception of 
the camels, as well as for the loading and un- 
loading of their burdens, and the transac- 
tion of mercantile business generally. The 
apartments used for the guests are small 
cells opening into a kind of corridor which 
runs through the inner sides of the court. 

Whilst I lay near the opening of my cell, 
looking down into the court below, there 
arrived from the desert a caravan— that 
is, a large assemblage of travelers. It con- 
sisted chiefly of Moldavian pilgrims, who, 
to make their good work even more than 
complete, had begun by visiting the shrine 
of the Virgin in Egypt, and were now going 
on to Jerusalem. They had been over- 
taken in the desert by a gale of wind, 
which so drove the sand, and raised up 
such mountains before them, that their 
journey had been terribly perplexed and 
obstructed, and their provisions (including 
water, the most precious of all) had been 
exhausted long before they reached the end 
of their toilsome march. They were sadly 
wayworn. The arrival of the caravan drew 
many and various groups into the court. 
There was the Moldavian pilgrim with his 
sable dress, and cap of fur, and heavy 
235 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVII 



masses of bushy hair; the Turk with his 
various and brilliant garments; the Arab 
superbly stalking under his striped blanket, 
that hung like royalty upon his stately 
form; the jetty Ethiopian in his slavish 
frock; the sleek, smooth-faced scribe with 
his comely pelisse, and his silver ink-box 
stuck in like a dagger at his girdle. And 
mingled with these were the camels— some 
standing, some kneeling and being unladen, 
some twisting round their long necks and 
gently stealing the straw from out of their 
own pack-saddles. 

In a couple of days I was ready to start. 
The way of providing for the passage of the 
desert is this: there is an agent in the town 
who keeps himself in communication with 
some of the desert Arabs that are hovering 
within a day's journey of the place; a party 
of these, upon being guaranteed against 
seizure or other ill-treatment at the hands 
of the Governor, come into the town, bring- 
ing with them the number of camels which 
you require, and then they stipulate for a 
certain sum to take you to the place of 
your destination in a given time; the agree- 
ment thus made by them includes a safe- 
conduct through their country, as well as 
the hire of the camels. According to the 
contract made with me, I was to reach Cairo 
236 



Chapter XVII ] 



EOTHEN 



within ten days from the commencement 
of the journey. I had four camels, one for 
my baggage, one for each of my servants, 
and one for myself. Four Arabs, the 
owners of the camels, came with me on 
foot. My stores were a small soldier's tent, 
two bags of dried bread brought from the 
convent at Jerusalem, and a couple of bot- 
tles of wine from the same source, two 
goatskins filled with water, tea, sugar, a 
cold tongue, and (of all things in the world) 
a jar of Irish butter which Mysseri had 
purchased from some merchant. There 
was also a small sack of charcoal, for the 
greater part of the desert through which 
we were to pass is void of fuel. 

The camel kneels to receive her load, and 
for a while she will allow the packing to go 
on with silent resignation; but when she 
begins to suspect that her master is put- 
ting more than a just burden upon her 
poor hump, she turns round her supple 
neck, and looks sadly upon the increasing 
load, and then gently remonstrates against 
the wrong with the sigh of a patient wife. 
If sighs will not move you, she can weep; 
you soon learn to pity and soon to love her 
for the sake of her gentle and womanish 
ways. 

You cannot, of course, put an English or 

237 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVII 



any other riding-saddle upon the back of 
the camel, but your quilt, or carpet, or 
whatever you carry for the purpose of lying 
on at night, is folded, and fastened on to 
the pack-saddle upon the top of the hump, 
and on this you ride, or rather sit. You sit 
as a man sits on a chair when he sits 
astride. I made an improvement on this 
plan: I had my English stirrups strapped 
on to the cross-bars of the pack-saddle, 
and thus by gaining rest for my dangling 
legs, and gaining, too, the power of varying 
my position more easily than I could other- 
wise have done, I added very much to my 
comfort. 

The camel, like the elephant, is one of 
the old-fashioned sort of animals that still 
walk along upon the (now nearly exploded) 
plan of the ancient beasts that lived before 
the flood; she moves forward both her near 
legs at the same time, and then awkwardly 
swings round her off shoulder and haunch, 
so as to repeat the manoeuver on that side; 
her pace, therefore, is an odd, disjointed, 
and disjoining sort of movement that is 
rather disagreeable at first, but you soon 
grow reconciled to it. The height to which 
you are raised is of great advantage to you 
in passing the burning sands of the desert, 
for the air at such a distance from the 
238 



Chapter XVII ] 



EOTHEN 



ground is much cooler, and more lively than 
that which circulates beneath. 

For several miles beyond Gaza the land, 
freshened by the rains of the last week, was 
covered with rich verdure, and thickly jew- 
eled with meadow flowers so bright and fra- 
grant that I began to grow almost uneasy— 
to fancy that the very desert was receding 
before me, and that the long-desired adven- 
ture of passing its "burning sands " was to 
end in a mere ride across a field. But as I 
advanced, the true character of the country 
began to display itself with sufficient clear- 
ness to dispel my apprehensions, and be- 
fore the close of my first day's journey I 
had the gratification of finding that I was 
surrounded on all sides by a tract of real 
sand, and had nothing at all to complain 
of, except that there peeped forth at inter- 
vals a few isolated blades of grass, and 
many of those stunted shrubs which are the 
accustomed food of the camel. 

Before sunset I came up with an encamp- 
ment of Arabs (the encampment from 
which my camels had been brought), and 
my tent was pitched amongst theirs. I was 
now amongst the true Bedouins. Almost 
every man of this race closely resembles 
his brethren; almost every man has large 
and finely formed features, but his face is 
239 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XYII 



so thoroughly stripped of flesh, and the 
white folds from his head-gear fall down by 
his haggard cheeks so much in the burial 
fashion, that he looks quite sad and 
ghastly; his large, dark orbs roll slowly 
and solemnly over the white of his deep- 
set eyes; his countenance shows painful 
thought and long suffering— the suffering 
of one fallen from a high estate. His gait 
is strangely majestic, and he marches along 
with his simple blanket as though he were 
wearing the purple. His common talk is a 
series of piercing screams and cries, 1 very 
painful to hear. 

The Bedouin women are not treasured up 
like the wives and daughters of other Ori- 
entals, and indeed they seemed almost en- 
tirely free from the restraints imposed by 
jealousy. The feint which they made of 
concealing their faces from me was al- 
ways slight. When they first saw me, 
they used to hold up a part of their 
drapery with one hand across their faces, 
but they seldom persevered very steadily 
in subjecting me to this privation. They 
were sadly plain. The awful haggardness 
that gave something of character to the 

1 Milne s cleverly goes to the French for the exact word which 
conveys the impression produced by the voice of the Arabs, 
and calls them "un penple eriard." 



240 



Chapter XVII ] 



EOTHEN 



faces of the men was sheer ugliness in 
the poor women. It is a great shame, but 
the truth is that, except when we refer to 
the beautiful devotion of the mother to her 
child, all the fine things we say and think 
about woman apply only to those who are 
tolerably good-looking or graceful. These 
Arab women were not within the scope of 
the privilege, and indeed were altogether 
much too plain and clumsy for this vain 
and lovesome world. They may have been 
good women enough, so far as relates to the 
exercise of the minor virtues, but they had 
so grossly neglected the prime duty of look- 
ing pretty in this transitory life that I could 
not at all forgive them; they seemed to feel 
the weight of their guilt, and to be truly 
and humbly penitent. I had the complete 
command of their affections, for at any mo- 
ment I could make their young hearts 
bound and their old hearts jump by offer- 
ing a handful of tobacco; yet, believe me, 
it was not in the first soiree that my store 
of latakia was exhausted ! 

The Bedouin women have no religion. 
This is partly the cause of their clumsiness. 
Perhaps if from Christian girls they would 
learn how to pray, their souls might become 
more gentle, and their limbs be clothed 
with grace. 

16 241 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVII 



You who are going into their country 
have a direct personal interest in knowing 
something about "Arab hospitality"; but 
the deuce of it is that the poor fellows 
with whom I have happened to pitch my 
tent were scarcely ever in a condition to 
exercise that magnanimous virtue with 
much eclat; indeed, Mysseri's canteen gen- 
erally enabled me to outdo my hosts in the 
matter of entertainment. They were always 
courteous, however, and were never back- 
ward in offering me the youart, a kind 
of whey, which is the principal delicacy to 
be found amongst the wandering tribes. 

Practically, I think, Childe Harold would 
have found it a dreadful bore to make "the 
desert his dwelling-place," for, at all events, 
if he adopted the life of the Arabs he 
would have tasted no solitude. The tents 
are partitioned, not so as to divide the 
Childe and the "fair spirit" who is his 
"minister " from the rest of the world, but 
so as to separate the twenty or thirty 
brown men that sit screaming in the one 
compartment from the fifty or sixty brown 
women and children that scream and 
squeak in the other. If you adopt the Arab 
life for the sake of seclusion, you will be 
horribly disappointed, for you will find your- 
self in perpetual contact with a mass of 
242 



Chapter XVII ] 



EOTHEN 



hot fellow-creatures. It is true that all 
who are inmates of the same tent are re- 
lated to each other, but I am not quite sure 
that that circumstance adds much to the 
charm of such a life. 

In passing the desert you will find your 
Arabs wanting to start and to rest at all 
sorts of odd times; they like, for instance, 
to be off at one in the morning, and to rest 
during the whole of the afternoon. You 
must not give way to their wishes in this 
respect; I tried their plan once, and found 
it very harassing and unwholesome. An 
ordinary tent can give you very little pro- 
tection against heat, for the fire strikes 
fiercely through single canvas, and you 
soon find that whilst you lie crouching and 
striving to hide yourself from the blazing 
face of the sun, his power is harder to bear 
than it is when you boldly defy him from 
the airy heights of your camel. 

It had been arranged with my Arabs 
that they were to bring with them all the 
food which they would want for themselves 
during the passage of the desert, but as 
we rested, at the end of the first day's 
journey, by the side of an Arab encamp- 
ment, my camel-men found all that they 
required for that night in the tents of 
their own brethren. On the evening of the 
243 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVII 



second day, however, just before we en- 
camped for the night, my four Arabs came 
to Dthemetri, and formally announced that 
they had not brought with them one atom 
of food, and that they looked entirely to my 
supplies for their daily bread. This was 
awkward intelligence. We were now just 
two days deep in the desert, and I had 
brought with me no more bread than might 
be reasonably required for myself and my 
European attendants. I believed at the mo- 
ment (for it seemed likely enough) that the 
men had really mistaken the terms of the 
arrangement, and feeling that the bore of 
being put upon half -rations would be a less 
evil (and even to myself a less inconve- 
nience) than the starvation of my Arabs, I 
at once told Dthemetri to assure them that 
my bread should be equally shared with all. 
Dthemetri, however, did not-approve of this 
concession; he assured me quite positively 
that the Arabs thoroughly understood the 
agreement, and that if they were now with- 
out food, they had wilfully brought them- 
selves into this strait for the wretched 
purpose of bettering their bargain by the 
value of a few paras' worth of bread. This 
suggestion made me look at the affair in a 
new light. I should have been glad enough 
to put up with the slight privation to which 
244 



Chapter XVII ] 



EOTHEN 



my concession would subject me, and could 
have borne to witness the semi-starvation 
of poor Dthemetri with a fine, philosophical 
calm; but it seemed to me that the scheme, 
if scheme it were, had something of auda- 
city in it, and was well enough calculated 
to try the extent of my softness. I knew 
the danger of allowing such a trial to re- 
sult in a conclusion that I was one who 
might be easily managed; and therefore, 
after thoroughly satisfying myself, from 
Dthemetri's clear and repeated assertions, 
that the Arabs had really understood the 
arrangement, I determined that they should 
not now violate it by taking advantage of 
my position in the midst of their big desert; 
so I desired Dthemetri to tell them that 
they should touch no bread of mine. We 
stopped, and the tent was pitched; the 
Arabs came to me and prayed loudly for 
bread; I refused them. 

"Then we die!" 

"God's will be done." 

I gave the Arabs to understand that I 
regretted their perishing by hunger, but 
that I should bear this calmly, like any 
other misfortune not my own— that, in 
short, I was happily resigned to their fate. 
The men would have talked a great deal, 
but they were under the disadvantage of 
245 



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[Chapter XVII 



addressing me through a hostile inter- 
preter; they looked hard upon my face, hut 
they found no hope there, so at last they 
retired, as they pretended to lay them 
down and die. 

In about ten minutes from this time I 
found that the Arabs were busily cooking 
their bread! Their pretense of having 
brought no food was false, and was only 
invented for the purpose of saving it. They 
had a good bag of meal which they had 
contrived to stow away under the baggage, 
upon one of the camels, in such a way as 
to escape notice. In Europe the detection 
of a scheme like this would have occasioned 
a disagreeable feeling between the master 
and the delinquent, but you would no more 
recoil from an Oriental on account of a 
matter of this sort than in England you 
would reject a horse that had tried, and 
failed, to throw you. Indeed, I felt quite 
good-humoredly towards my Arabs, because 
they had so woefully failed in their wretched 
attempt, and because, as it turned out, I had 
done what was right; they, too, poor fellows, 
evidently began to like me immensely, on 
account of the hard-heartedness which had 
enabled me to baffle their scheme. 

The Arabs adhere to those ancestral 
principles of bread-baking which have been 
246 



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EOTHEN 



sanctioned by the experience of ages. The 
very first baker of bread that ever lived 
must have done his work exactly as the 
Arab does at this day. He takes some 
meal, and holds it out in the hollow of his 
hands, whilst his comrade pours over it a 
few drops of water; he then mashes up the 
moistened flour into a paste, pulls the 
lump of dough so made into small pieces 
and thrusts them into the embers. His 
way of baking exactly resembles the craft 
or mystery of roasting chestnuts as prac- 
tised by children; there is the same pru- 
dence and circumspection in choosing a 
good berth for the morsel— the same enter- 
prise and self-sacrificing valor in pulling 
it out with the fingers. 

The manner of my daily march was this: 
At about an hour before dawn, I rose and 
made the most of about a pint of water 
which I allowed myself for washing. Then 
I breakfasted upon tea and bread. As soon 
as the beasts were loaded, I mounted my 
camel and pressed forward. My poor Arabs, 
being on foot, would sometimes moan with 
fatigue, and pray for rest; but I was anxious 
to enable them to perform their contract 
for bringing me to Cairo within the stipu- 
lated time, and I did not, therefore, allow a 
halt until the evening came. About mid- 
247 



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[Chapter XVII 



day, or soon after, Mysseri used to bring 
up his camel alongside of mine, and supply 
me with a piece of the dried bread softened 
in water, and also (as long as it lasted) 
with a piece of the tongue; after this there 
came into my hand (how well I remember 
it !) the little tin cup half filled with wine 
and water. 

As long as you are journeying in the in- 
terior of the desert you have no particular 
point to make for as your resting-place. 
The endless sands yield nothing but small 
stunted shrubs; even these fail after the 
first two or three days, and from that time 
you pass over broad plains, you pass over 
newly reared hills, you pass through val- 
leys dug out by the last week's storm; and 
the hills and the valleys are sand, sand, 
sand, still sand, and only sand, and sand, 
and sand again. The earth is so samely 
that your eyes turn towards heaven— 
towards heaven, I mean, in sense of sky. 
You look to the sun, for he is your task- 
master, and by him you know the mea- 
sure of the work that you have done, and 
the measure of the work that remains for 
you to do. He comes when you strike your 
tent in the early morning, and then, for the 
first hour of the day, as you move forward 
on your camel, he stands at your near side, 
248 



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EOTHEN 



and makes you know that the whole day's 
toil is before you; then for a while, and a 
long while, you see him no more, for you are 
veiled, and shrouded, and dare not look upon 
the greatness of his glory, but you know 
where he strides overhead, by the touch of 
his flaming sword. No words are spoken, 
but your Arabs moan, your camels sigh, 
your skin glows, your shoulders ache, and 
for sights you see the pattern and the web 
of the silk that veils your eyes, and the 
glare of the outer light. Time labors on; 
your skin glows, your shoulders ache, your 
Arabs moan, your camels sigh, and you 
see the same pattern in the silk, and the 
same glare of light beyond; but conquer- 
ing time marches on, and by and by the 
descending sun has compassed the heaven, 
and now softly touches your right arm, and 
throws your lank shadow over the sand, 
right along on the way for Persia. Then 
again you look upon his face, for his power 
is all veiled in his beauty, and the redness 
of flames has become the redness of roses; 
the fair, wavy cloud that fled in the morning 
now comes to his sight once more— comes 
blushing, yet still comes on, comes burning 
with blushes, yet comes and clings to his 
side. 

Then begins your season of rest. The 
249 



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[Chapter XVII 



world about you is all your own, and there, 
where you will, you pitch your solitary 
tent; there is no living thing to dispute 
your choice. When at last the spot had 
been fixed upon, and we came to a halt, one 
of the Arabs would touch the chest of my 
camel, and utter at the same time a pecu- 
liar gurgling sound. The beast instantly 
understood and obeyed the sign, and slowly 
sank under me till she brought her body 
to a level with the ground. Then gladly 
enough I alighted. The rest of the camels 
were unloaded, and turned loose to browse 
upon the shrubs of the desert, where 
shrubs there were, or, where these failed, to 
wait for the small quantity of food that 
was allowed them out of our stores. 

My servants, helped by the Arabs, busied 
themselves in pitching the tent and kin- 
dling the fire. Whilst this was doing I used 
to walk away towards the east, confiding 
in the print of my foot as a guide for my 
return. Apart from the cheering voices of 
my attendants I could better know and feel 
the loneliness of the desert. The influence 
of such scenes, however, was not of a soft- 
ening kind, but filled me rather with a sort 
of childish exultation in the self-sufficiency 
which enabled me to stand thus alone in 
the wideness of Asia— a short-lived pride, 
250 



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EOTHEN 



for wherever man wanders, he still remains 
tethered by the chain that links him to his 
kind; and so when the night closed round 
me I began to return— to return, as it were, 
to my own gate. Reaching at last some 
high ground, I could see, and see with de- 
light, the fire of our small encampment, 
and when at last I regained the spot, it 
seemed a very home that had sprung up for 
me in the midst of these solitudes. My 
Arabs were busy with their bread, Mysseri 
rattling tea-cups; the little kettle, with her 
odd, old-maidish looks, sat humming away 
old songs about England; and two or three 
yards from the fire my tent stood prim and 
tight, with open portal and with welcoming 
look— a look like "the own arm-chair" of 
our lyrist's " sweet Lady Anne." 

Sometimes in the earlier part of my jour- 
ney the night breeze blew coldly; when that 
happened, the dry sand was heaped up out- 
side round the skirts of the tent, and so the 
wind that everywhere else could sweep as 
he listed along those dreary plains was 
forced to turn aside in his course, and make 
way, as he ought, for the Englishman. 
Then, within my tent, there were heaps 
of luxuries— dining-rooms, dressing-rooms, 
libraries, bedrooms, drawing-rooms, ora- 
tories, all crowded into the space of a 
251 



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[Chapter XVII 



hearth-rug. The first night, I remember, 
with my books and maps about me, I 
wanted a light. They brought me a taper, 
and immediately from out of the silent 
desert there rushed in a flood of life un- 
seen before. Monsters of moths, of all 
shapes and hues, that never before per- 
haps had looked upon the shining of a 
flame, now madly thronged into my tent, and 
dashed through the fire of the candle till 
they fairly extinguished it with their burn- 
ing limbs. Those who had failed in attain- 
ing this martyrdom suddenly became seri- 
ous, and clung despondingly to the canvas. 

By and by there was brought to me the 
fragrant tea, and big masses of scorched 
and scorching toast, and the butter that had 
come all the way to me in this desert of 
Asia from out of that poor, dear, starving 
Ireland. I feasted like a king— like four 
kings— like a boy in the fourth form. 

When the cold, sullen morning dawned, 
and my people began to load the camels, I 
always felt loath to give back to the waste 
this little spot of ground that had glowed 
for a while with the cheerfulness of a 
human dwelling. One by one, the cloaks, 
the saddles, the baggage, the hundred 
things that strewed the ground and made 
it look so familiar— all these were taken 
252 



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EOTHEN 



away and laid upon the camels. A speck 
in the broad tracts of Asia remained still 
impressed with the mark of patent port- 
manteaus and the heels of London boots; 
the embers of the fire lay black and cold 
upon the sand; and these were the signs 
we left. 

My tent was spared to the last, but when 
all else was ready for the start, then came 
its fall; the pegs were drawn, the canvas 
shivered, and in less than a minute there 
was nothing that remained of my genial 
home but only a pole and a bundle. The 
encroaching Englishman was off, and in- 
stant upon the fall of the canvas, like an 
owner who had waited and watched, the 
Genius of the Desert stalked in. 

To servants, as I suppose to any other 
Europeans not much accustomed to amuse 
themselves by fancy or memory, it often 
happens that after a few days' journeying 
the loneliness of the desert will become 
frightfully oppressive. Upon my poor fel- 
lows the access of melancholy came heavy 
and all at once, as a blow from above. They 
bent their necks and bore it as best they 
could, but their joy was great on the fifth 
day, when we came to an oasis called 
Gatieh, for here we found encamped a cara- 
van (that is, an assemblage of travelers) 
253 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVII 



from Cairo. The Orientals living in cities 
never pass the desert, except in this way; 
many will wait for weeks, and even for 
months, until a sufficient number of per- 
sons can be found ready to undertake the 
journey at the same time— until the flock 
of sheep is big enough to fancy itself a 
match for wolves. They could not, I think, 
really secure themselves against any seri- 
ous danger by this contrivance; for, though 
they have arms, they are so little accus- 
tomed to use them, and so utterly unorgan- 
ized, that they never could make good their 
resistance to robbers of the slightest re- 
spectability. It is not of the Bedouins that 
such travelers are afraid, for the safe-con- 
duct granted by the chief of the ruling tribe 
is never, I believe, violated; but it is said 
that there are deserters and scamps of 
various sorts who hover about the skirts 
of the desert, particularly on the Cairo side, 
and are anxious to succeed to the property 
of any poor devils whom they may find 
more weak and defenseless than them- 
selves. 

These people from Cairo professed to be 
amazed at the ludicrous disproportion be- 
tween their numerical forces and mine. 
They could not understand, and they 
wanted to know, by what strange privilege 
254 



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EOTHEN 



it is that an Englishman with a brace of 
pistols and a couple of servants rides safely 
across the desert, whilst they, the natives 
of the neighboring cities, are forced to travel 
in troops, or rather in herds. One of them 
got a few minutes of private conversation 
with Dthemetri, and ventured to ask him 
anxiously whether the English did not 
travel under the protection of evil demons. 
I had previously known (from Methley, I 
think, who had traveled in Persia) that 
this notion, so conducive to the safety of 
our countrymen, is generally prevalent 
amongst Orientals; it owes its origin partly 
to the strong wilfulness of the English gen- 
tleman (a quality which, not being backed by 
any visible authority, either civil or military, 
seems perfectly superhuman to the soft 
Asiatic), but partly, too, to the magic of 
the banking system, by force of which the 
wealthy traveler will make all his journeys 
without carrying a handful of coin, and yet, 
when he arrives at a city, will rain down 
showers of gold. The theory is that the 
English traveler has committed some sin 
against God and his conscience, and that 
for this the Evil Spirit has hold of him, and 
drives him from his home, like a victim of 
the old Grecian Furies, and forces him to 
travel over countries far and strange, and 
255 

1 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVII 



most chiefly over deserts and desolate 
places, and to stand upon the sites of cities 
that once were and are now no more, and 
to grope among the tombs of dead men. 
Often enough there is something of truth 
in this notion; often enough the wandering 
Englishman is guilty (if guilt it be) of some 
pride or ambition, big or small, imperial or 
parochial, which, being offended, has made 
the lone places more tolerable than ball- 
rooms to him, a sinner. 

I can understand the sort of amazement 
of the Orientals at the scantiness of the 
retinue with which an Englishman passes 
the desert, for I was somewhat struck my- 
self when I saw one of my countrymen 
making his way across the wilderness in 
this simple style. At first there was a 
mere moving speck in the horizon. My 
party, of course, became all alive with ex- 
citement, and there were many surmises. 
Soon it appeared that three laden camels 
were approaching, and that two of them 
carried riders; in a little while we saw that 
one of the riders wore the European dress, 
and at last the travelers were pronounced 
to be an English gentleman and his ser- 
vant. By their side there were a couple of 
Arabs on foot, and this, if I rightly remem- 
ber, was the whole party. 

253 



Chapter XVII ] 



EOTHEN 



You,— you love sailing,— in returning 
from a cruise to the English coast, you see 
often enough a fisherman's humble boat far 
away from all shores, with an ugly, black 
sky above, and an angry sea beneath. You 
watch the grisly old man at the helm, car- 
rying his craft with strange skill through 
the turmoil of waters; and the boy, supple- 
limbed, yet weather-worn already, and with 
steady eyes that look through the biast- 
you see him understanding commandments 
from the jerk of his father's white eyebrow 
-now belaying, and now letting go, now 
scrunching himself down into mere ballast, 
or bailing out death with a pipkin. Familiar 
enough is the sight, and yet when I see it I 
always stare anew, and with a kind of Titanic 
exultation, because that a poor boat with 
the brain of a man and the hands of a boy 
on board can match herself so bravely 
agamst black heaven and ocean. Well, so 
when you have traveled for days and days 
over an Eastern desert, without meeting the 
likeness of a human being, and then at last 
see an English shooting-jacket and a single 
servant come listlessly slouching along from 
out of the forward horizon, you stare at the 
wide unproportion between this slender 
company, and the boundless plains of sand 
through which they are keeping their way. 
17 257 



EOTHEN [Chapter XVII 



This Englishman, as I afterwards found, 
was a military man returning to his coun- 
try from India, and crossing the desert at 
this part in order to go through Palestine. 
As for me, I had come pretty straight from 
England, and so here we met in the wilder- 
ness at about half-way from our respective 
starting-points. As we approached each 
other, it became with me a question 
whether we should speak. I thought it 
likely that the stranger would accost me, 
and in the event of his doing so I was quite 
ready to be as sociable and chatty as 1 
could be, according to my nature; but still i 
could not think of anything particular that 
I had to say to him. Of course, among civi- 
lized people, the not having anything to say 
is no excuse at all for not speaking, but 1 
was shy and indolent, and I felt no great 
wish to stop and talk like a morning vis- 
itor in the midst of those broad solitudes. 
The traveler, perhaps, felt as I did, for, ex- 
cept that we lifted our hands to our caps 
and waved our arms in courtesy, we passed 
each other quite as distantly as if we had 
passed in Pall Mall. Our attendants, how- 
ever, were not to be cheated of the delight 
that they felt in speaking to new listeners 
and hearing fresh voices once more, me 
masters, therefore, had no sooner passed 
258 



Chapter XVII ] 



EOTHEN 



each other than their respective servants 
quietly stopped and entered into conversa- 
tion. As soon as my camel found that her 
companions were not following her, she 
caught the social feeling and refused to go 
on. I felt the absurdity of the situation, and 
determined to accost the stranger, if only to 
avoid the awkwardness of remaining stuck 
fast in the desert whilst our servants were 
amusing themselves. When with this in- 
tent I turned round my camel, I found that 
the gallant officer had passed me by about 
thirty or forty yards, and was exactly in 
the same predicament as myself. I put my 
now willing camel in motion, and rode up 
towards the stranger. Seeing this, he fol- 
lowed my example, and came forward to 
meet me. He was the first to speak. Too 
courteous to address me as if he admitted 
the possibility of my wishing to accost him 
from any feeling of mere sociability or civil- 
ian-like love of vain talk, he at once attrib- 
uted my advances to a laudable wish of 
acquiring statistical information, and, ac- 
cordingly, when we got within speaking dis- 
tance, he said, " I dare say you wish to know 
how the plague is going on at Cairo ? " And 
then he went on to say he regretted that his 
information did not enable him to give me in 
numbers a perfectly accurate statement of 
259 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVII 



the daily deaths; he afterwards talked pleas- 
antly enough upon other and less ghastly 
subjects. I thought him manly and intelli- 
gent— a worthy one of the few thousand 
strong Englishmen to whom the Empire of 
India is committed. 

The night after the meeting with the 
people of the caravan, Dthemetri, alarmed 
by their warnings, took upon himself to 
keep watch all night in the tent. No robbers 
came, except a jackal that poked his nose 
into my tent from some motive of rational 
curiosity. Dthemetri did not shoot him, for 
fear of waking me. These brutes swarm 
in every part of Syria; and there were many 
of them even in the midst of those void 
sands, which would seem to give such poor 
promise of food; I can hardly tell what prey 
they could be hoping for, unless it were that 
they might find, now and then, the carcass 
of some camel that had died on the jour- 
ney. They do not marshal themselves into 
great packs like the wild dogs of Eastern 
cities, but follow their prey in families, like 
place-hunters of Europe; their voices are 
frightfully like to the shouts and cries of 
human beings. If you lie awake in your 
tent at night, you are almost continually 
hearing some hungry family as it sweeps 
along in full cry; you hear the exulting 
260 



Chapter XVII ] 



EOTHEN 



scream with which the sagacious dam first 
winds the carrion, and the shrill response 
of the unanimous cubs as they snuff the 
tainted air: "Wha! wha! wha! wha! wha! 
wha! Whose gift is it in, mama? " 

Once, during this passage, my Arabs lost 
their way among the hills of loose sand 
that surrounded us, but after a while we 
were lucky enough to recover our right line 
of march. The same day we fell in with a 
sheik, the head of a family, that actually 
dwells at no great distance from this part 
of the desert during nine months of the 
year. The man carried a matchlock, and of 
this he was inordinately proud on account 
of the supposed novelty and ingenuity of 
the contrivance. We stopped, and sat 
down and rested awhile for the sake of a 
little talk. There was much that I should 
have liked to ask this man, but he could not 
understand Dthemetri's language, and the 
process of getting at his knowledge by 
double interpretation through my Arabs 
was tedious. I discovered, however (and 
my Arabs knew of that fact), that this man 
and his family lived habitually for nine 
months of the year without touching or 
seeing either bread or water. The stunted 
shrub growing at intervals through the 
sand in this part of the desert enables the 
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EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVII 



camel mares to yield a little milk, and this 
furnishes the sole food and drink of their 
owner and his people. During the other 
three months (the hottest, I suppose) even 
this resource fails, and then the sheik and 
his people are forced to pass into another 
district. You would ask me why the man 
should not remain always in that district 
which supplies him with water during three 
months of the year, but I don't know enough 
of Arab politics to answer the question. 
The sheik was not a good specimen of the 
effect produced by his way of living. He was 
very small, very spare, and sadly shriveled 
—a poor over-roasted snipe, a mere cinder 
of a man. I made him sit down by my side, 
and gave him a piece of bread and a cup of 
water from out of my goatskins. This was 
not very tempting drink to look at, for it 
had become turbid, and was deeply red- 
dened by some coloring matter contained 
in the skins, but it kept its sweetness and 
tasted like a strong decoction of Russian 
leather. The sheik sipped this, drop by 
drop, with ineffable relish, and rolled his 
eyes solemnly round between every draught, 
as though the drink were the drink of 
the Prophet, and had come from the seventh 
heaven. 

An inquiry about distances led to the dis- 

262 



Chapter XVII ] 



EOTHEN 



covery that this sheik had never heard of 
the division of time into hours. 

About this part of my journey I saw the 
likeness of a fresh-water lake. I saw, as 
it seemed, a broad sheet of calm wate* 
stretching far and fair towards the south - 
stretching deep into winding creeks, ^nd 
hemmed in by jutting promontories, and 
shelving smooth off towards the shallow 
side; on its bosom the reflected fire of the 
sun lay playing, and seeming to float as 
though upon deep, still waters. 

Though I knew of the cheat, it was not 
till the spongy foot of my camel had almost 
trodden in the seeming lake that I could 
undeceive my eyes, for the shore-line was 
quite true and natural. I soon saw the 
cause of the phantasm. A sheet of water, 
heavily impregnated with salts, had gath- 
ered together in a vast hollow between the 
sand-hills, and, when dried up by evapora- 
tion, had left a white saline deposit; this 
exactly marked the space which the waters 
had covered, and so traced out a good shore- 
line. The minute crystals of the salt, by 
their way of sparkling in the sun, were 
made to seem like the dazzled face of a 
lake that is calm and smooth. 

The pace of the camel is irksome, and 
makes your shoulders and loins ache from 
263 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVII 



the peculiar way in which you are obliged 
to suit yourself to the movements of the- 
beast; but one soon, of course, becomes in- 
ured to the work, and after my first two days 
lis way of traveling became so familiar to 
me that (poor sleeper as I am) I now and then 
slumbered for some moments together on 
the back of my camel. On the fifth day of 
my journey, the air above lay dead, and all 
the whoia earth that I could reach with my 
utmost sight and keenest listening was 
still and lifeless as some dispeopled and 
forgotten world that rolls round and round 
in the heavens through wasted floods of 
light. The sun, growing fiercer and fiercer, 
shone down more mightily now than ever 
on me he shone before, and as I drooped my 
head under his fire, and closed my eyes 
against the glare that surrounded me, I 
slowly fell asleep, for how many minutes 
or moments I cannot tell; but after awhile 
I was gently awakened by a peal of church 
bells— my native bells— the innocent bells 
of Marlen, that never before sent forth their 
music beyond the Blaygon hills! My first 
idea naturally was that I still remained fast 
under the power of a dream. I roused my- 
self, and drew aside the silk that covered 
my eyes, and plunged my bare face into the 
light. Then, at least, I was well enough 
264 



Chapter XVII ] 



EOTHEN 



awakened, but still those old Marlen bells 
rang on, not ringing for joy, but properly, 
prosily, steadily, merrily ringing "for 
church." After a while the sound died 
away slowly. It happened that neither I 
nor any of my party had a watch by which 
to measure the exact time of its lasting, 
but it seemed to me that about ten minutes 
had passed before the bells ceased. I at- 
tributed the effect to the great heat of the 
sun, the perfect dryness of the clear air 
through which I moved, and the deep still- 
ness of all around me. It seemed to me that 
these causes, by occasioning a great tension 
and consequent susceptibility of the hearing 
organs, had rendered them liable to tingle 
under the passing touch of some mere 
memory that must have swept across my 
brain in a moment of sleep. Since my re- 
turn to England it has been told me that 
like sounds have been heard at sea, and 
that the sailor, becalmed under a vertical 
sun in the midst of the wide ocean, has lis- 
tened in trembling wonder to the chime of 
his own village bells. 

During my travels I kept a journal— a 
journal sadly meager and intermittent, but 
one which enabled me to find out the day 
of the month and the week, according to 
the European calendar. Referring to this, 
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EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVII 



I found that the day was Sunday, and 
roughly allowing for the difference of longi- 
tude, I concluded that at the moment of my 
hearing that strange peal the church-going 
bells of Marlen must have been actually call- 
ing the prim congregation of the parish to 
morning prayer. The coincidence amused 
me faintly, but I could not allow myself a 
hope that the effect I had experienced was 
anything other than an illusion— an illusion 
liable to be explained (as every illusion is 
in these days) by some of the philosophers 
who guess at nature's riddles. It would 
have been sweeter to believe that my kneel- 
ing mother, by some pious enchantment, 
had asked and found this spell to rouse me 
from my scandalous forgetfulness of God's 
holy day, but my fancy was too weak to 
carry a faith like that. Indeed, the vale 
through which the bells of Marlen send 
their song is a highly respectable vale, and 
its people (save one, two, or three) are 
wholly unaddicted to the practice of magi- 
cal arts. 

After the fifth day of my journey I no 
longer traveled over shifting hills, but came 
upon a dead level— a dead level bed of sand, 
quite hard, and studded with small shining 
pebbles. 

The heat grew fierce; there was no valley 

266 



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EOTHEN 



nor hollow, no hill, no mound, no shadow 
of hill nor of mound, by which I could 
mark the way I was making. Hour by hour 
I advanced, and saw no change— I was still 
the very center of a round horizon; hour by 
hour I advanced, and still there was the 
same, and the same, and the same— the 
same circle of flaming sky, the same circle 
of sand still glaring with light and fire. 
Over all the heaven above, over all the 
earth beneath, there was no visible power 
that could balk the fierce will of the sun. 
" He rejoiced as a strong man to run a race. 
His going forth was from the end of the 
heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: 
and there was nothing hid from the heat 
thereof." From pole to pole, and from the 
east to the west, he brandished his fiery 
scepter as though he had usurped all 
heaven and earth. As he bid the soft Per- 
sian in ancient times, so now, and fiercely, 
too, he bid me bow down and worship him; 
so now in his pride he seemed to command 
me and say, "Thou shalt have none other 
gods but me." I was all alone before him. 
There were these two pitted together, and 
face to face— the mighty sun for one, and 
for the other this poor, pale, solitary self 
of mine that I always carry about with 
me. 

267 



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[Chapter XVII 



But on the eighth day, and before I had 
yet turned away from Jehovah for the glit- 
tering god of the Persians, there appeared 
a dark line upon the edge of the forward 
horizon, and soon the line deepened into a 
delicate fringe, that sparkled here and there 
as though it were sown with diamonds. 
There, then, before me were the gardens 
and the minarets of Egypt, and the mighty 
works of the Nile, and I (the eternal Ego 
that I am!)— I had lived to see, and I saw 
them. 

When evening came I was still within 
the confines of the desert, and my tent was 
pitched as usual, but one of my Arabs 
stalked away rapidly towards the west, 
without telling me of the errand on which 
he was bent. After a while he returned. 
He had toiled on a graceful service*, he had 
traveled all the way on to the border of the 
living world, and brought me back for a 
token an ear of rice, full, fresh, and green. 

The next day I entered upon Egypt, and 
floated along (for the delight was as the 
delight of bathing) through green, wavy 
fields of rice, and pastures fresh and plenti- 
ful, and dived into the cold verdure of 
groves and gardens, and quenched my hot 
eyes in shade, as though in a bed of deep 
waters. 

268 



CHAPTER 
XVIII 



Cairo and the plague. 1 



CAIRO and Plague! During the whole 
time of my stay the plague was so 
master of the city, and stared so 
plain in every street and every alley, that I 
can't now affect to dissociate the two ideas. 

When, coming from the desert, I rode 
through a village lying near to the city 

1 There is some semblance of bravado in my manner of talk- 
ing about the plague. I have been more careful to describe 
the terrors of other people than my own. The truth is that 
during the whole period of my stay at Cairo I remained 
thoroughly impressed with a sense of my danger. I may 
almost say that Hived under perpetual apprehension, for even 
in sleep, as I fancy, there remained with me some faint notion 
of the peril with which I was encompassed. But fear does 
not necessarily damp the spirits ; on the contrary, it will often 
operate as an excitement, giving rise to unusual animation, 
and thus it affected me. If I had not been surrounded at 
this time by new faces, new scenes, and new sounds, the 
effect produced upon my mind by one unceasing cause of 
alarm may have been very different. As it was, the eager- 
ness with which I pursued my rambles among the wonders 
of Egypt was sharpened and increased by the sting of the 
fear of death. Thus my account of the matter plainly con- 
veys an impression that I remained at Cairo without losing my 
cheerfulness and buoyancy of spirits. And this is the truth ; 
but it is also true, as I have freely confessed, that my sense of 
danger during the whole period was lively and continuous. 

269 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVIII 



on the eastern side, there approached me, 
with busy face and earnest gestures, a, 
personage in the Turkish dress. His long 
flowing beard gave him rather a majestic 
look, but his briskness of manner and his 
visible anxiety to accost me seemed strange 
in an Oriental. The man, in fact, was French, 
or of French origin, and his object was to 
warn me of the plague, and prevent me 
from entering the city. 

" Arretez-vous, monsieur, je vous en prie 
—arretez-vous; il ne faut pas entrer dans 
la ville; la peste y regne partout." 

" Oui, je sais, 1 mais— " 

" Mais, monsieur, je dis la peste— la peste; 
c'est de LA PESTE qu'il est question." 

" Oui, je sais, mais—" 

" Mais, monsieur, je dis encore LA PESTE— 
LA PESTE. Je vous conjure de ne pas entrer 
dans la ville— vous seriez dans une ville 
empestee." 

" Oui, je sais, mais—" 

" Mais, monsieur, je dois done vous avertir 
tout bonnement que si vous entrez dans la 
ville, vous serez— enfin vous serez COM- 
PROMISE' 2 

1 Anglice for "je le sais." These answers of mine as given 
above are not meant as specimens of mere French, but of 
that fine, terse, nervous Continental English with which I 
and my compatriots make our way through Europe. 

2 The import of the word "compromised," when used in 
reference to contagion, is explained in page 2. 

270 



Chapter XVIII ] 



EOTHEN 



"Oui, je sais, mais— " 
The Frenchman was at last convinced 
that it was vain to reason with a mere Eng- 
lishman, who could not understand what 
it was to be "compromised." I thanked 
him most sincerely for his kindly meant 
warning; in hot countries it is very unusual 
indeed for a man to go out in the glare of 
the sun and give free advice to a stranger. 

When I arrived at Cairo I summoned Os- 
man Effendi, who was, as I knew, the owner 
of several houses, and would he able to pro- 
vide me with apartments; he had no diffi- 
culty in doing this, for there was not one 
European traveler in Cairo besides myself. 
Poor Osman! he met me with a sorrowful 
countenance, for the fear of the plague sat 
heavily on his soul; he seemed as if he felt 
that he was doing wrong in lending me a 
resting-place, and he betrayed such a list- 
lessness about temporal matters as one 
might look for in a man who believed that 
his days were numbered. He caught me, 
too, soon after my arrival, coming out from 
the public baths, 1 and from that time for- 

i It is said that when a Mussulman finds himself attacked by 
the plague, he goes and takes a bath. The couches on which 
the bathers recline would carry infection, according to tne 
notions of the Europeans. Whenever, therefore, I took the 
bath at Cairo (except the first time of my doing so), I avoided 
that part of the luxury which consists in being put up to 
dry " upon a kind of bed. 

271 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVIII 



ward he was sadly afraid of me, for upon 
the subject of contagion he held European 
opinions. 

Osman's history is a curious one. He 
was a Scotchman born, and when very 
young, being then a drummer-boy, he 
landed in Egypt with Fraser's force. He 
was taken prisoner, and, according to Mo- 
hammedan custom, the alternative of 
death or the Koran was offered to him. 
He did not choose death, and, therefore, 
went through the ceremonies necessary 
for turning him into a good Mohammedan. 
But what amused me most in his history 
was this: that very soon after having em- 
braced Islam he was obliged in practice to 
become curious and discriminating in his 
new faith— to make war upon Mohamme- 
dan dissenters, and follow the orthodox 
standard of the Prophet in fierce cam- 
paigns against the Wahabis, the Unita- 
rians of the Mussulman world. The Wa- 
habis were crushed, and Osman, returning 
home in triumph from his holy wars, 
began to flourish in the world; he ac- 
quired property, and became "effendi," or 
gentleman. At the time of my visit to 
Cairo, he seemed to be much respected by 
his brother Mohammedans, and gave pledge 
of his sincere alienation from Christianity 
272 



Chapter XVIII ] 



EOTHEN 



by keeping a couple of wives. He affected 
the same sort of reserve in mentioning 
them as is generally shown by Orientals. 
He invited me, indeed, to see his harem, 
but he made both his wives bundle out be- 
fore I was admitted; he felt, as it seemed to 
me, that neither of them would bear criti- 
cism, and I think that this idea, rather 
than any motive of sincere jealousy, in- 
duced him to keep them out of sight. The 
rooms of the harem reminded me of an 
English nursery rather than a Moham- 
medan paradise. One is apt to judge of 
a woman before one sees her by the air 
of elegance or coarseness with which she 
surrounds her home. I judged Osman's 
wives by this test, and condemned them 
both. But the strangest feature in Os- 
man's character was his inextinguishable 
nationality. In vain they had brought him 
over the seas in early boyhood; in vain 
had he suffered captivity, conversion, cir- 
cumcision; in vain they had passed him 
through fire in their Arabian campaigns: 
they could not cut away or burn out poor 
Osman's inborn love of all that was Scotch. 
In vain men called him effendi; in vain he 
swept along in Eastern robes; in vain the 
rival wives adorned his harem: the joy of 
his heart still plainly lay in this, that he 
is 273 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVIII 



had three shelves of books, and that the 
hooks were thoroughbred Scotch— the 
Edinburgh this, the Edinburgh that, and 
above all, I recollect, he prided himself 
upon the " Edinburgh Cabinet Library." 

The fear of the plague is its forerunner. 
It is likely enough that at the time of my 
seeing poor Osman the deadly taint was 
beginning to creep through his veins, but 
it was not till after I had left Cairo that he 
was visibly stricken. He died. 

As soon as I had seen all that interested 
me in Cairo and its neighborhood, I wished 
to make my escape from a city that lay 
under the terrible curse of the plague; but 
Mysseri fell ill— in consequence, I believe, 
of the hardships which he had been suffer- 
ing in my service; after a while he recov- 
ered sufficiently to undertake a journey, 
but then there was some difficulty in pro- 
curing beasts of burden, and it was not 
till the nineteenth day of my sojourn that 
I quitted the city. 

During all this time the power of the 
plague was rapidly increasing. When I first 
arrived, it was said that the daily number of 
" accidents 99 by plague, out of a population 
of about two hundred thousand, did not ex- 
ceed four or five hundred; but before I went 
away, the deaths were reckoned at twelve 
274 



Chapter XVIII ] 



EOTHEN 



hundred a day. I had no means of know- 
ing whether the numbers (given out, as I 
believe they were, by officials) were at all 
correct, but I could not help knowing that 
from day to day the number of the dead was 
increasing. My quarters were in one of the 
chief thoroughfares of the city, and as the 
funerals in Cairo take place between day- 
break and noon (a time during which I gen- 
erally stayed in my rooms), I could form 
some opinion as to the briskness of the 
plague. I don't mean that I got up every 
morning with the sun. It was not so. But 
the funerals of most people in decent cir- 
cumstances at Cairo are attended by singers 
and howlers, and the performances of these 
people woke me in the early morning, and 
prevented me from remaining in ignorance 
of what was going on in the street below. 

These funerals were very simply con- 
ducted. The bier was a shallow wooden 
tray carried upon a light and weak wooden 
frame. The tray had, in general, no lid, 
but the body was more or less hidden from 
view by a shawl or scarf. The whole was 
borne upon the shoulders of men, and hur- 
ried forward at a great pace. Two or three 
singers generally preceded the bier; the 
howlers (these are paid for their vocal la- 
bors) followed after; and last of all came 
275 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVIII 



such of the dead man's friends and relations 
as could keep up with such a rapid proces- 
sion; these, especially the women, would get 
terribly blown, and would struggle back into 
the rear; many were fairly "beaten off." I 
never observed any appearance of mourn- 
ing in the mourners; the pace was too 
severe for any solemn affectation of grief. 

When first I arrived at Cairo, the funerals 
that daily passed under my windows were 
many, but still there were frequent and 
long intervals without a single howl. 
Every day, however (except one, when I 
fancied that I observed a diminution of 
funerals), these intervals became less fre- 
quent and shorter, and at last the passing 
of the howlers from morn to noon was al- 
most incessant. I believe that about one 
half of the whole people was carried off by 
this visitation. The Orientals, however, 
have more quiet fortitude than Europeans 
under afflictions of this sort, and they never 
allow the plague to interfere with their 
religious usages. I rode, one day, round 
the great burial-ground. The tombs are 
strewed over a great expanse, among the 
vast mountains of rubbish (the accumula- 
tions of many centuries) which surround 
the city. The ground, unlike the Turkish 
"cities of the dead/'' which are made so 
276 



Chapter XVIII ] 



EOTHEN 



beautiful by their dark cypresses, has no- 
thing to sweeten melancholy— nothing to 
mitigate the hatefulness of death. Carniv- 
orous beasts and birds possess the place by 
night, and now in the fair morning it was 
all alive with fresh comers— alive with 
dead. Yet at this very time when the 
plague was raging so furiously, and on this 
very ground which resounded so mourn- 
fully with the howls of arriving funerals, 
preparations were going on for the reli- 
gious festival called the Kourban Bairam. 
Tents were pitched, and swings hung for 
the amusement of children. A ghastly holi- 
day! but the Mohammedans take a pride, 
and a just pride, in following their ancient 
customs undisturbed by the shadow of 
death. 

I did not hear, whilst I was at Cairo, that 
any prayer for a remission of the plague 
had been offered up in the mosques. I be- 
lieve that, however frightful the ravages of 
the disease may be, the Mohammedans re- 
frain from approaching Heaven with their 
complaints until the plague has endured 
for a long space, and then at last they pray 
God, not that the plague may cease, but 
that it may go to another city! 

A good Mussulman seems to take pride 
in repudiating the European notion that 
277 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XYIII 



the will of God can be eluded by shunning 
the touch of a sleeve. When I went to see 
the Pyramids of Sakkara, I was the guest 
of a noble old fellow— an Osmanli (how 
sweet it was to hear his soft, rolling lan- 
guage after suffering as I had suffered of 
late from the shrieking tongue of the 
Arabs!). This man was aware of the Euro- 
pean ideas about contagion, and his first 
care, therefore, was to assure me that not 
a single instance of plague had occurred in 
his village. He then inquired as to the prog- 
ress of the plague at Cairo. I had but a 
bad account to give. Up to this time my 
host had carefully refrained from touching 
me, out of respect to the European theory 
of contagion; but as soon as it was made 
plain that he, and not I, would be the per- 
son endangered by contact, he gently laid 
his hand upon my arm, in order to make 
me feel sure that the circumstance of my 
coming from an infected city did not occa- 
sion him the least uneasiness. In that touch 
there was true hospitality. 

Very different is the faith and the prac- 
tice of the Europeans, or rather, I mean, of 
the Europeans settled in the East, and 
commonly called Levantines. When I 
came to the end of my journey over the 
desert, I had been so long alone that the 
278 



Chapter XVIII ] 



EOTHEN 



prospect of speaking to somebody at Cairo 
seemed almost a new excitement. I felt a 
sort of consciousness that I had a little of 
the wild beast about me, but I was quite in 
the humor to be charmingly tame, and to 
be quite engaging in my manners, if I 
should have an opportunity of holding com- 
munion with any of the human race whilst 
at Cairo. I knew no one in the place, and 
had no letters of introduction, but I carried 
letters of credit, and it often happens, in 
places remote from England, that those 
" advices " operate as a sort of introduction, 
and obtain for the bearer (if disposed to re- 
ceive them) such ordinary civilities as it 
may be in the power of the banker to offer. 

Very soon after my arrival, I found out 
the abode of the Levantine to whom my cre- 
dentials were addressed. At his door sev- 
eral persons (all Arabs) were hanging about 
and keeping guard. It was not till after 
some delay, and the interchange of some 
communications with those in the interior of 
the citadel, that I was admitted. At length, 
however, I was conducted through the 
court, and up a flight of stairs, and finally 
into the apartment where business was 
transacted. The room was divided by a 
good, substantial fence of iron bars, and be- 
hind these defenses the banker had his sta- 
279 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVni 



tion. The truth was that from fear of the 
plague he had adopted the course usually 
taken by European residents, and had shut 
himself up "in strict quarantine "—that is 
to say, that he had, as he hoped, cut 
himself off from all communication with in- 
fecting substances. The Europeans long 
resident in the East, without any or with 
scarcely any exception, are firmly convinced 
that the plague is propagated by contact, 
and by contact only — that if they can but 
avoid the touch of an infecting substance 
they are safe, and that if they cannot they 
die. This belief induces them to adopt the 
contrivance of putting themselves in that 
state of siege which they call " quarantine." 
It is a part of their faith that metals, and 
hempen rope, and also, I fancy, one or two 
other substances, will not carry the infec- 
tion; and they likewise believe that the 
germ of pestilence lying in an infected 
substance may be destroyed by submersion 
in water, or by the action of smoke. They, 
therefore, guard the doors of their houses 
with the utmost care against intrusion, and 
condemn themselves, with all the mem- 
bers of their family, including European 
servants, to a strict imprisonment with- 
in the walls of their dwelling. Their native 
attendants are not allowed to enter at all, 
280 



Chapter XVIII ] 



EOTHEN 



Tout they make the necessary purchases of 
provisions; these are hauled up through 
one of the windows by means of a rope, and 
are afterwards soaked in water. 

I knew nothing of these mysteries, and 
was not, therefore, prepared for the sort of 
reception I met with. I advanced to the 
iron fence, and putting my letter between 
the bars, politely proffered it to Mr. Ban- 
ker. Mr. Banker received me with a sad 
and dejected look, and not "with open 
arms," or with any arms at all, but with— 
a pair of tongs ! I placed my letter between 
the iron fingers. These instantly picked it 
up as it were a viper, and conveyed it away to 
be scorched and purified by fire and smoke. 
I was disgusted at this reception, and at 
the idea that anything of mine could carry 
infection to the poor wretch who stood on the 
other side of the bars— pale and trem- 
bling, and already meet for death. I looked 
with something of the Mohammedan's feel- 
ing upon these little contrivances for elud- 
ing fate; and in this instance at least they 
were vain: a little while, and the poor 
money-changer, who had strived to guard 
the days of his life (as though they were 
coins) with bolts and bars of iron— he was 
seized by the plague, and he died. 

To people entertaining such opinions as 
281 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVni 



these respecting the fatal effect of contact, 
the narrow and crowded streets of Cairo 
were terrible as the easy slope that leads 
to Avernus. The roaring ocean and the 
beetling crags owe something of their sub- 
limity to this— that if they be tempted they 
can take the warm life of a man. To the 
contagionist, filled as he is with the dread 
of final causes, having no faith in destiny, 
nor in the fixed will of God, and with none 
of the devil-may-care indifference which 
might stand him instead of creeds— to such 
one every rag that shivers in the breeze of 
a plague-stricken city has this sort of sub- 
limity. If, by any terrible ordinance, he 
be forced to venture forth, he sees death 
dangling from every sleeve, and as he creeps 
forward, he poises his shuddering limbs be- 
tween the imminent jacket that is stab- 
bing at his right elbow, and the murderous 
pelisse that threatens to mow him clean 
down as it sweeps along on his left. But 
most of all he dreads that which most of 
all he should love— the touch of a woman's 
dress; for mothers and wives, hurrying 
forth on kindly errands from the bedsides 
of the dying, go slouching along through 
the streets more wilfully and less courte- 
ously than the men. For a while it may 
be that the caution of the poor Levantine 
282 



Chapter XVIII ] 



EOTHEN 



may enable him to avoid contact, but sooner 
or later, perhaps, the dreaded chance ar- 
rives. That bundle of linen, with the dark, 
tearful eyes at the top of it, that labors 
along with the voluptuous clumsiness of 
Grisi— she has touched the poor Levantine 
with the hem of her sleeve! From that 
dread moment his peace is gone; his mind, 
forever hanging upon the fatal touch, in- 
vites the blow which he fears; he watches 
for the symptoms of plague so carefully that, 
sooner or later, they come in truth. The 
parched mouth is a sign— his mouth is 
parched. The throbbing brain— his brain 
does throb. The rapid pulse— he touches 
his own wrist (for he dares not ask counsel 
of any man, lest he be deserted), he touches 
his wrist, and feels how his frighted blood 
goes galloping out of his heart. There is 
nothing but the fatal swelling that is want- 
ing to make his sad conviction complete. 
Immediately he has an odd feel under the 
arm— no pain, but a little straining of the 
skin. He would to God it were his fancy that 
were strong enough to give him that sensa- 
tion ! This is the worst of all. It now seems 
to him that he could be happy and con- 
tented with his parched mouth, and his 
throbbing brain, and his rapid pulse, if only 
he could know that there were no swelling 
283 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVIII 



under the left arm; but dares he try? In 
a moment of calmness and deliberation he 
dares not, but when for a while he has 
writhed under the torture of suspense, a 
sudden strength of will drives him to seek 
and know his fate. He touches the gland, 
and finds the skin sane and sound, but under 
the cuticle there lies a small lump, like a 
pistol bullet, that moves as he pushes it. 
Oh! but is this for all certainty? is this the 
sentence of death? Feel the gland of the 
other arm; there is not the same lump ex- 
actly, yet something a little like it. Have 
not some people glands naturally enlarged? 
Would to Heaven he were one! So he 
does for himself the work of the plague, 
and when the Angel of Death, thus courted, 
does indeed and in truth come, he has only 
to finish that which has been so well begun. 
He passes his fiery hand over the brain of 
the victim, and lets him rave for a season, 
but all chance-wise, of people and things 
once dear, or of people and things indiffer- 
ent. Once more the poor fellow is back at 
his home in fair Provence, and sees the 
sun-dial that stood in his childhood's gar- 
den—sees part of his mother, and the long 
since forgotten face of that little dear 
sister (he sees her, he says, on a Sunday 
morning, for all the church bells are ring- 
284 



Chapter XVIII ] 



ing); he looks up and down through the 
universe, and owns it well piled with bales 
upon bales of cotton and cotton eternal— 
so much so that he feels— he knows— he 
swears he could make that winning hazard, 
if the billiard-table would not slant up- 
wards, and if the cue were a cue worth 
playing with; but it is not; it 's a cue that 
won't move— his own arm won't move. In 
short, there 's the devil to pay in the brain 
of the poor Levantine; and perhaps the 
next night but one he becomes the "life 
and the soul" of some squalling jackal 
family, who fish him out by the foot from 
his shallow and sandy grave. 

Better fate was mine. By some happy 
perverseness (occasioned, perhaps, by my 
disgust at the notion of being received with 
a pair of tongs), I took it into my pleasant 
head that all the European notions about 
contagion were thoroughly unfounded— 
that the plague might be providential, or 
"epidemic " (as they phrase it), but was not 
contagious, and that I could not be killed 
by the touch of a woman's sleeve, nor yet 
by her blessed breath. I, therefore, deter- 
mined that the plague should not alter my 
habits and amusements in any one respect. 
Though I came to this resolve from impulse, 
I think that I took the course which was in 
285 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVin 



effect the most prudent; for the cheerful- 
ness of spirits which I was thus enabled 
to retain discouraged the yellow-winged 
angel, and prevented him from taking a 
shot at me. I, however, so far respected 
the opinion of the Europeans that I avoided 
touching, when I could do so without priva- 
tion or inconvenience. This endeavor fur- 
nished me with a sort of amusement as 
I passed through the streets. The usual 
mode of moving from place to place in the 
city of Cairo is upon donkeys. Of these 
great numbers are always in readiness, 
with donkey-boys attached. I had two 
who constantly (until one of them died of 
the plague) waited at my door upon the 
chance of being wanted. I found this way 
of moving about exceedingly pleasant, and 
never attempted any other. I had only to 
mount my beast, and tell my donkey-boy 
the point for which I was bound, and in- 
stantly I began to glide on at a capital pace. 
The streets of Cairo are not paved in any 
way. but strewed with a dry, sandy soil, so 
deadening to sound that the footfall of my 
donkey could scarcely be heard. There is 
no trottoir, and as you ride through the 
streets you mingle with the people on foot. 
Those who are in your way, upon being 
warned by the shouts of the donkey-boy, 
286 



Chapter XVIII ] 



EOTHEN 



move very slightly aside, so as to leave you 
a narrow lane for your passage. Through 
this you move at a gallop, gliding on delight- 
fully in the very midst of crowds, without 
being inconvenienced or stopped for a mo- 
ment; it seems to you that it is not the 
donkey, but the donkey-boy, who wafts you 
along with his shouts through pleasant 
groups and air that comes thick with the 
fragrance of burial spice. "Eh, sheik! Eh, 
bint! reggalek, shumalek," etc. ("O old 
man, O virgin, get out of the way on the 
right! virgin, O old man, get out of the 
way on the left! This Englishman comes, 
he comes, he comes!") The narrow alley 
which these shouts cleared for my passage 
made it possible, though difficult, to go on 
for a long way without touching a single 
person, and my endeavors to avoid such 
contact were a sort of game for me in my 
loneliness. If I got through a street with- 
out being touched, I won; if I was touched, 
I lost— lost a deuce of a stake, accord- 
ing to the theory of the Europeans, but 
that I deemed to be all nonsense; I only 
lost that game, and would certainly win the 
next. 

There is not much in the way of public 
buildings to admire at Cairo, but I saw one 
handsome mosque, and to this an instructive 
287 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVIII 



history is attached. A Hindustani mer- 
chant, having amassed an immense fortune, 
settled in Cairo, and soon found that his 
riches in the then state of the political 
world gave him vast power in the city- 
power, however, the exercise of which was 
much restrained by the counteracting influ- 
ence of other wealthy men. With a view 
to extinguish every attempt at rivalry, the 
Hindustani merchant built this magnifi- 
cent mosque at his own expense; when the 
work was complete, he invited all the lead- 
ing men of the city to join him in prayer 
within the walls of the newly built temple, 
and he then caused to be massacred all those 
who were sufficiently influential to cause 
him any jealousy or uneasiness— in short, 
all the "respectable men" of the place. 
After this he possessed undisputed power 
in the city, and was greatly revered— he 
is revered to this day. It struck me that 
there was a touching simplicity in the 
mode which this man so successfully 
adopted for gaining the confidence and 
good will of his fellow-citizens. There 
seems to be some improbability in the story 
(though not nearly so gross as it might ap- 
pear to an European ignorant of the East, 
for witness Mehemet Ali's destruction of 
the Mamelukes, a closely similar act, and 
288 



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EOTHEN 



attended with the like brilliant success 1 ); 
but even if the story be false as a mere 
fact, it is perfectly true as an illustration 
— it is a true exposition of the means by 
which the respect and affection of Orien- 
tals may be conciliated. 

I ascended, one day, to the citadel, and 
gained from its ramparts a superb view of 
the town. The fanciful and elaborate gilt- 
work of the many minarets gives a light 
and florid grace to the city as seen from 
this height, but before you can look for 
many seconds at such things, your eyes are 
drawn westward— drawn westward and 
over the Nile, till they rest upon the mas- 
sive enormities of the Gizeh Pyramids. 

I saw within the fortress many yoke of 
men, all haggard and woebegone, and a 
kennel of very fine lions, well fed and flour- 
ishing; I say yoke of men, for the poor fel- 
lows were working together in bonds; I say 
a kennel of lions, for the beasts were not 
inclosed in cages, but simply chained up 
like dogs. 

I went round the bazaars; it seemed to 
me that pipes and arms were cheaper here 
than at Constantinople, and I should advise 
you, therefore, if you reach both places, to 

1 Mehemet Ali invited the Mamelukes to a feast, and mur- 
dered them whilst preparing to enter the banquet-hall. 



19 



289 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVIII 



prefer the market of Cairo. In the open 
slave market I saw about fifty girls exposed 
for sale, but all of them black or " invisible " 
brown. A slave agent took me to some 
rooms in the upper story of the building, 
and also into several obscure houses in the 
neighborhood, with a view to show me some 
white women. The owners raised various 
objections to the display of their ware, and 
well they might, for I had not the least no- 
tion of purchasing; some refused on account 
of the illegality of selling to unbelievers, 1 and 
others declared that all transactions of this 
sort were completely out of the question as 
long as the plague was raging. I only suc- 
ceeded in seeing one white slave who was for 
sale, but on this treasure the owner affected 
to set an immense value, and raised my ex- 
pectations to a high pitch by saying that 
the girl was Circassian, and was "fair as 
the full moon." There was a good deal of 
delay, but at last I was led into a long, dreary 
room, and there, after marching timidly 
forward for a few paces, I descried at the 
farther end that mass of white linen which 
indicates an Eastern woman. She was 
bid to uncover her face, and I presently 
saw that, though very far from being good- 
looking according to my notion of beauty, 

i It is not strictly lawful to sell white slaves to a Christian. 
290 



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EOTHEN 



she had not been inaptly described by the 
man who compared her to the full moon, 
for her large face was perfectly round and 
perfectly white. Though very young, she 
was nevertheless extremely fat. She gave 
me the idea of having been got up for sale 
—of having been fattened and whitened by 
medicines or by some peculiar diet. I was 
firmly determined not to see any more of 
her than the face. She was perhaps dis- 
gusted at this my virtuous resolve, as well 
as with my personal appearance; perhaps 
she saw my distaste and disappointment; 
perhaps she wished to gain favor with her 
owner by showing her attachment to his 
faith; at all events, she holloed out very 
lustily and very decidedly that " she would 
not be bought by the infidel." 

Whilst I remained at Cairo I thought it 
worth while to see something of the magi- 
cians, because I considered that these men 
were in some sort the descendants of those 
who contended so stoutly against the su- 
perior power of Aaron. I therefore sent 
for an old man who was held to be the 
chief of the magicians, and desired him to 
show me the wonders of his art. The old 
man looked and dressed his character ex- 
ceedingly well. The vast turban, the flowing 
beard, and the ample robes were all that one 
291 



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[Chapter XVIII 



could wish in the way of appearance. The 
first experiment (a very stale one) which he 
attempted to perform for me was that of 
showing the forms and faces of my absent 
friends, not to me, but to a boy brought in 
from the streets for the purpose, and said 
to be chosen at random. A mangal (pan 
of burning charcoal) was brought into my 
room, and the magician, bending over it, 
sprinkled upon the fire some substances 
consisting, I suppose, of spices or sweetly 
burning woods, for immediately a fragrant 
smoke arose that curled around the bend- 
ing form of the wizard the while that he 
pronounced his first incantations. When 
these were over, the boy was made to 
sit down, and a common green shade was 
bound over his brow. Then the wizard 
took ink and, still continuing his incanta- 
tions, wrote certain mysterious figures 
upon the boy's palm, and directed him to 
rivet his attention to these marks, without 
looking aside for an instant. Again the in- 
cantations proceeded, and after a while the 
boy, being seemingly a little agitated, was 
asked whether he saw anything on the palm 
of his hand. He declared that he saw— and 
he described it rather minutely— a kind of 
military procession with royal flags and 
warlike banners flying. I was then called 
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upon to name the absent person whose form 
was to be made visible. I named Keate. You 
were not at Eton, and I must tell you, there- 
fore, what manner of man it was that I named, 
though I think you must have some idea of 
him already, for wherever, from utmost Can- 
ada to Bundelcund, wherever there was the 
whitewashed wall of an officer's room, or of 
any other apartment in which English gen- 
tlemen are forced to kick their heels, there, 
likely enough (in the days of his reign), the 
head of Keate would be seen, scratched or 
drawn with those various degrees of skill 
which one observes in the representation 
of saints. Anybody without the least no- 
tion of drawing could still draw a speaking, 
nay, scolding likeness of Keate. If you had 
no pencil you could draw him well enough 
with a poker, or the leg of a chair, or the 
smoke of a candle. He was little more (if 
more at all) than five feet in height, and 
was not very great in girth, but within this 
space was concentrated the pluck of ten 
battalions. He had a really noble voice, 
and this he could modulate with great skill; 
but he had also the power of quacking like 
an angry duck, and he almost always adopted 
this mode of communication in order to in- 
spire respect. He was a capital scholar, but 
his ingenuous learning had not "softened 
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EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVIII 



his manners," and had "permitted them to 
be fierce"— tremendously fierce. He had 
such a complete command over his temper 
—I mean over his good temper— that he 
scarcely ever allowed it to appear. You could 
not put him out of humor— that is, out of 
the ill humor which he thought to be fitting 
for a head-master. His red, shaggy eye- 
brows were so prominent that he habitu- 
ally used them as arms and hands for the 
purpose of pointing out any object towards 
which he wished to direct attention. The 
rest of his features were equally strik- 
ing in their way, and were all and all his 
own. He wore a fancy dress, partly resem- 
bling the costume of Napoleon, and partly 
that of a widow woman. I could not have 
named anybody more decidedly differing in 
appearance from the rest of the human race. 

"Whom do you name?" "I name John 
Keate." "Now, what do you see?" said 
the wizard to the boy. "I see," answered 
the boy, " I see a fair girl with golden hair, 
blue eyes, pallid face, rosy lips." There was 
a shot ! I shouted out my laughter with pro- 
fane exultation, and the wizard, perceiving 
the grossness of his failure, declared that 
the boy must have known sin (for none but 
the innocent can see truth), and accordingly 
kicked him down-stairs. 

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EOTHEN 



One or two other boys were tried, but 
none could "see truth." 

Notwithstanding the failure of these ex- 
periments, I wished to see what sort of 
mummery my magician would practise if 
I called upon him to show me some per- 
formances of a higher order than those 
already attempted. I therefore made a 
treaty with him, in virtue of which he 
was to descend with me into the tombs 
near the Pyramids, and there evoke the 
devil. The negotiation lasted some time, 
for Dthemetri, as in duty bound, tried to 
beat down the wizard as much as he could, 
and the wizard, on his part, manfully stuck 
up for his price, declaring that to raise the 
devil was really no joke, and insinuating 
that to do so was an awesome crime. I let 
Dthemetri have his way in the negotiation, 
but I felt in reality very indifferent about 
the sum to be paid, and for this reason, 
namely, that the payment (except a very 
small present, which I might make, or not, 
as I chose) was to be contingent on success. 
At length the bargain was finished, and it 
was arranged that, after a few days to be 
allowed for preparation, the wizard should 
raise the devil for £2 10s., play or pay— no 
devil, no piasters. 

The wizard failed to keep his appoint- 
295 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVIII 



ment. I sent to know why the deuce he 
had not come to raise the devil. The truth 
was that my Mohammed had gone to the 
mountain. The plague had seized him, 
and he died. 

Although the plague was now spreading 
quick and terrible havoc around him, I did 
not see very plainly any corresponding 
change in the looks of the streets until 
the seventh day after my arrival; I then 
first observed that the city was silenced. 
There were no outward signs of despair, 
nor of violent terror, but many of the 
voices that had swelled the busy hum of 
men were already hushed in death, and 
the survivors, so used to scream and 
screech in their earnestness whenever 
they bought or sold, now showed an un- 
wonted indifference about the affairs of 
this world; it was less worth while for 
men to haggle and haggle, and crack the 
sky with noisy bargains, when the Great 
Commander was there, who could "pay all 
their debts with the roll of his drum." 

At this time I was informed that of 
twenty-five thousand people at Alexan- 
dria, twelve thousand had died already; 
the Destroyer had come rather later to 
Cairo, but there was nothing of weari- 
ness in his strides. The deaths came 
296 



Chapter XVIII 3 



EOTHEN 



faster than ever they befell in the plague 
of London; hut the calmness of Orientals 
under such visitations, and their habit of 
using biers for interment, instead of bury- 
ing coffins along with the bodies, rendered 
it practicable to dispose of the dead in the 
usual way, without shocking the people 
by any unaccustomed spectacle of horror. 
There was no tumbling of bodies into carts, 
as in the plague of Florence and the plague 
of London; every man, according to his 
station, was properly buried, and that in 
the accustomed way, except that he went 
to his grave at a pace more than usually 
rapid. 

The funerals pouring through the streets 
were not the only public evidence of 
deaths. In Cairo this custom prevails: at 
the instant of a man's death (if his prop- 
erty is sufficient to justify the expense) pro- 
fessional howlers are employed. I believe 
that these persons are brought near to the 
dying man when his end appears to be ap- 
proaching, and the moment that life is 
gone, they lift up their voices and send 
forth a loud wail from the chamber of 
death. Thus I knew when my near neigh- 
bors died. Sometimes the howls were near, 
sometimes more distant. Once I was 
awakened in the night by the wail of death 
297 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVIII 



in the next house, and another time by a 
like howl from the house opposite; and 
there were two or three minutes, I recollect, 
during which the howl seemed to be actu- 
ally running along the street. 

I happened to be rather teased at this 
time by a sore throat, and I thought it would 
be well to get it cured, if I could, before I 
again started on my travels. I therefore 
inquired for a Frank doctor, and was in- 
formed that the only one then at Cairo was 
a Bolognese refugee, a very young practi- 
tioner, and so poor that he had not been 
able to take flight, as the other medical 
men had done. At such a time as this 
it was out of the question to send for 
an European physician; a person thus sum- 
moned would be sure to suppose that the 
patient was ill of the plague, and would 
decline to come. I therefore rode to the 
young doctor's residence, ascended a flight 
or two of stairs, and knocked at his door. 
No one came immediately, but after some 
little delay the medico himself opened 
the door and admitted me. I, of course, 
made him understand that I had come to 
consult him, but before entering upon my 
throat grievance, I accepted a chair and 
exchanged a sentence or two of common- 
place conversation. Now the natural com- 
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EOTHEN 



monplace of the city at this season was of 
a gloomy sort: " Comme va la peste?" (" How 
goes the plague? ") And this was precisely 
the question I put. A deep sigh, and the 
words, "Sette cento per giorno, signor" 
(" Seven hundred a day "), pronounced in a 
tone of the deepest sadness and dejection, 
were the answer I received. The day was 
not oppressively hot, yet I saw that the 
doctor was transpiring profusely, and even 
the outside surface of the thick shawl 
dressing-gown in which he had wrapped 
himself appeared to be moist. He was a 
handsome, pleasant-looking young fellow, 
but the deep melancholy of his tone did not 
tempt me to prolong the conversation, and, 
without further delay, I requested that my 
throat might be looked at. The medico 
held my chin in the usual way, and ex- 
amined my throat; he then wrote me a 
prescription, and almost immediately after- 
wards I bade him farewell; but as he con- 
ducted me towards the door I observed an 
expression of strange and unhappy watch- 
fulness in his rolling eyes. It was not the 
next day, but the next day but one, if I 
rightly remember, that I sent to request an- 
other interview with my doctor. In due time 
Dthemetri, my messenger, returned, look- 
ing sadly aghast; he had "met the medico," 
299 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVIII 



for so he phrased it, " coming out from his 
house— in a bier !" 

It was, of course, plain that when the poor 
Bolognese stood looking down my throat, 
and almost mingling his breath with mine, 
he was already stricken of the plague. I 
suppose that his violent sweat must have 
been owing to some medicine administered 
by himself in the faint hope of a cure. 
The peculiar rolling of his eyes which 
I had remarked is, I believe, to experienced 
observers, a pretty sure test of the plague. 
A Russian acquaintance of mine, speaking 
from the information of men who had 
made the Turkish campaigns of 1828 and 
1829, told me that by this sign the officers 
of Sabalkansky's force were able to make 
out the plague-stricken soldiers with a good 
deal of certainty. 

It so happened that most of the people 
with whom I had anything to do, during my 
stay at Cairo, were seized with plague, and 
all these died. Since I had been for a long 
time en route before I reached Egypt, and 
was about to start again for another long 
journey over the desert, there were, of 
course, many little matters touching my 
wardrobe and my traveling equipments 
which required to be attended to whilst I 
remained in the city. It happened so many 
300 



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EOTHEN 



times that Dthemetri's orders in respect to 
these matters were frustrated by the deaths 
of the tradespeople and others whom he 
employed that at last I became quite ac- 
customed to the peculiar manner of the 
man when he prepared to announce a new 
death to me. The poor fellow naturally 
supposed that I should feel some uneasi- 
ness at hearing of the "accidents 5 ' con- 
tinually happening to persons employed by 
me, and he therefore communicated their 
deaths as though they were the deaths of 
friends. He would cast down his eyes and 
look like a man abashed, and then gently 
and with a mournful gesture allow the 
words, 66 Morto, signor," to come through his 
lips. I don't know how many of such in- 
stances occurred, but they were several, 
and besides these (as I told you before), my 
banker, my doctor, my landlord, and my 
magician all died of the plague. A lad who 
acted as a helper in the house I occupied 
lost a brother and a sister within a few 
hours. Out of my two established donkey- 
boys one died. I did not hear of any in- 
stance in which a plague-stricken patient 
had recovered. 

Going out one morning, I met unexpect- 
edly the scorching breath of the khamsin 
wind, and fearing that I should faint under 
301 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVIII 



the infliction, I returned to my rooms. Re- 
flecting, however, that I might have to 
encounter this wind in the desert, where 
there would be no possibility of avoiding 
it, I thought it would be better to brave it 
once more in the city, and to try whether 
I could really bear it or not. I therefore 
mounted my ass, and rode to old Cairo 
and along the gardens by the banks of the 
Nile. The wind was hot to the touch, as 
though it came from a furnace; it blew 
strongly, but yet with such perfect steadi- 
ness that the trees bending under its force 
remained fixed in the same curves without 
perceptibly waving. The whole sky was 
obscured by a veil of yellowish gray, that 
shut out the face of the sun. The streets 
were utterly silent, being indeed almost 
entirely deserted, and not without cause, 
for the scorching blast, whilst it fevers the 
blood, closes up the pores of the skin, and 
is terribly distressing, therefore, to every 
animal that encounters it. I returned to 
my rooms dreadfully ill. My head ached 
with a burning pain, and my pulse bounded 
quick and fitfully, but perhaps (as in the 
instance of the poor Levantine whose death 
I was mentioning) the fear and excitement 
I felt in trying my own wrist may have 
made my blood flutter the faster. 

302 . 



Chapter XVIII ] 



EOTHEN 



It is a thoroughly well believed theory 
that during the continuance of the plague 
you can't be ill of any other febrile malady. 
An unpleasant privilege that! for ill I was, 
and ill of fever, and I anxiously wished that 
the ailment might turn out to be anything 
rather than plague. I had some right to 
surmise that my illness might have been 
merely the effect of the hot wind, and this 
notion was encouraged by the elasticity of 
my spirits, and by a strong foref eeling that 
much of my destined life in this world was 
yet to come and yet to be fulfilled. That 
was my instinctive belief; but when I care- 
fully weighed the probabilities on the one 
side and on the other, I could not help 
seeing that the strength of argument 
was all against me. There was a strong 
antecedent likelihood in favor of my being 
struck by the same blow as the rest of the 
people who had been dying around me. 
Besides, it occurred to me that, after all, 
the universal opinion of the Europeans 
upon a medical question, such as that of 
contagion, might probably be correct, and, 
if it were, I was so thoroughly "compro- 
mised," especially by the touch and breath 
of the dying medico, that I had no right 
to expect any other fate than that which 
now seemed to have overtaken me. Balan- 
303 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVIII 



cing, then, as well as I could all the consid- 
erations suggested by hope and fear, I 
slowly and reluctantly came to the conclu- 
sion that, according to all merely reasonable 
probability, the plague had come upon me. 

You might suppose that this conviction 
would have induced me to write a few fare- 
well lines to those who were dearest, and 
that having done that, I should have turned 
my thoughts towards the world to come. 
Such, however, was not the case. I believe 
that the prospect of death often brings 
with it strong anxieties about matters of 
comparatively trivial import, and certainly 
with me the whole energy of the mind was 
directed towards the one petty object of 
concealing my illness until the latest pos- 
sible moment— until the delirious stage. 
I did not believe that either Mysseri or 
Dthemetri, who had served me so faithfully 
in all trials, would have deserted me (as 
most Europeans are wont to do) when they 
knew that I was stricken by plague, but I 
shrank from the idea of putting them to 
this test, and I dreaded the consternation 
which the knowledge of my illness would 
be sure to occasion. 

I was very ill indeed at the moment when 
my dinner was served, and my soul sick- 
ened at the sight of the food, but I had 
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EOTHEN 



luckily the habit of dispensing with the at- 
tendance of servants during my meal, and 
as soon as I was left alone, I made a melan- 
choly calculation of the quantity of food 
I should have eaten if I had been in my 
usual health, and filled my plates accord- 
ingly, and gave myself salt, and so on, 
as though I were going to dine. I then 
transferred the viands to a piece of the 
omnipresent "Times" newspaper, and hid 
them away in a cupboard, for it was not 
yet night, and I dared not to throw the food 
into the street until darkness came. I did 
not at all relish this process of fictitious 
dining, but at length the cloth was re- 
moved, and I gladly reclined on my divan, 
(I would not lie down), with the "Arabian 
Nights " in my hand. 

I had a feeling that tea would be a capi- 
tal thing for me, but I would not order it 
until the usual hour. When at last the 
time came, I drank deep draughts from the 
fragrant cup. The effect was almost in- 
stantaneous. A plenteous sweat burst 
through my skin, and watered my clothes 
through and through. I kept myself 
thickly covered. The hot, tormenting 
weight which had been loading my brain 
was slowly heaved away. The fever was 
extinguished. I felt a new buoyancy of 
20 305 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVIII 



spirits, and an unusual activity of mind. I 
went into my bed under a load of thick 
covering, and when the morning came, and 
I asked myself how I was, I answered, 
"Perfectly well." 

I was very anxious to procure, if possible, 
some medical advice for Mysseri, whose 
illness prevented my departure. Every 
one of the European practising doctors, of 
whom there had been many, had either died 
or fled; it was said, however, that there was 
an Englishman in the medical service of 
the Pasha who quietly remained at his 
post, but that he never engaged in private 
practice. I determined to try if I could ob- 
tain assistance in this quarter. I did not 
venture at first, and at such a time as this, 
to ask him to visit a servant who was pros- 
trate on the bed of sickness; but thinking 
that I might thus gain an opportunity of 
persuading him to attend Mysseri, I wrote 
a note mentioning my own affair of the sore 
throat, and asking for the benefit of his 
medical advice. He instantly followed back 
my messenger, and was at once shown up 
into my room. I entreated him to stand off, 
telling him fairly how deeply I was " com- 
promised," and especially by my contact 
with a person actually ill and since dead of 
plague. The generous fellow, with a good- 
306 



Chapter XVIII ] 



EOTHEN 



humored laugh at the terrors of the con- 
tagionists, marched straight up to me, and 
forcibly seized my hand and shook it with 
manly violence. I felt grateful indeed, and 
swelled with fresh pride of race, because 
that my countryman could carry himself 
so nobly. He soon cured Mysseri, as well 
as me, and all this he did from no other 
motives than the pleasure of doing a kind- 
ness and the delight of braving a danger. 

At length the great difficulty 1 I had 
had in procuring beasts for my depar- 
ture was overcome, and now, too, I was to 
have the new excitement of traveling on 
dromedaries. With two of these beasts 
and three camels, I gladly wound my way 
from out of the pest-stricken city. As I 
passed through the streets, I observed a 
grave elder stretching forth his arms and 
lifting up his voice in a speech which 
seemed to have some reference to me; 
requiring an interpretation, I found that 
the man had said: "The Pasha seeks 
camels, and he finds them not; the Eng- 
lishman says, ' Let camels be brought,' and 
behold, there they are ! ? ' 

I no sooner breathed the free, wholesome 
air of the desert than I felt that a great 

1 The difficulty was occasioned by the immense exertions which 
the Pasha was making to collect camels for military purposes. 

307 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XVIII 



burden which I had been scarcely con- 
scious of bearing was lifted away from my 
mind. For nearly three weeks I had lived 
under peril of death; the peril ceased, and 
not till then did I know how much alarm 
and anxiety I had really been suffering. 



308 



CHAPTER 
XIX 



The Pyramids. 



I WENT to see and to explore the 
Pyramids. 
Familiar to one from the days of 
early childhood are the forms of the Egyp- 
tian Pyramids, and now, as I approached 
them from the banks of the Nile, I had no 
print, no picture before me, and yet the old 
shapes were there; there was no change: 
they were just as I had always known 
them. I straightened myself in my stir- 
rups, and strived to persuade my under- 
standing that this was real Egypt, and that 
those angles which stood up between me 
and the west were of harder stuff and more 
ancient than the paper pyramids of the 
green portfolio. Yet it was not till I came 
to the base of the Great Pyramid that real- 
ity began to weigh upon my mind. Strange 
to say, the bigness of the distinct blocks of 
stones was the first sign by which I attained 
to feel the immensity of the whole pile. 
309 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XIX 



When I came and trod, and touched with 
my hands, and climbed, in order that hy 
climbing I might come to the top of one 
single stone, then, and almost suddenly, a 
cold sense and understanding of the pyra- 
mid's enormity came down, overcasting my 
brain. 

Now try to endure this homely, sick- 
nursish illustration of the effect produced 
upon one's mind by the mere vastness of 
the Great Pyramid, When I was very young 
(between the ages, I believe, of three and 
five years old), being then of delicate 
health, I was often in time of night the 
victim of a strange kind of mental oppres- 
sion. I lay in my bed perfectly conscious 
and with open eyes, but without power to 
speak or to move, and all the while my brain 
was oppressed to distraction by the pres- 
ence of a single and abstract idea— the 
idea of solid immensity. It seemed to me 
in my agonies that the horror of this visi- 
tation arose from its coming upon me with- 
out form or shape— that the close presence 
of the direst monster ever bred in hell 
would have been a thousand times more 
tolerable than that simple idea of solid 
size; my aching mind was fixed and riveted 
clown upon the mere quality of vastness, 
vastness, vastness, and was not permitted 
310 



Chapter XIX] 



EOTHEN 



to invest with it any particular object. If 
I could have done so, the torment would 
have ceased. When at last I was roused 
from this state of suffering, I could not, of 
course, in those days (knowing no verbal 
metaphysics, and no metaphysics at all, 
except by the dreadful experience of an ab- 
stract idea)— I could not, of course, find 
words to describe the nature of my sensa- 
tions; and even now I cannot explain why it 
is that the forced contemplation of a mere 
quality, distinct from matter, should be so 
terrible. Well, now my eyes saw and knew, 
and my hands and my feet informed my 
understanding, that there was nothing at 
all abstract about the Great Pyramid— it 
was a big triangle, sufficiently concrete, 
easy to see, and rough to the touch; it could 
not, of course, affect me with the peculiar 
sensation I have been talking of, but yet 
there was something akin to that old night- 
mare agony in the terrible completeness 
with which a mere mass of masonry could 
fill and load my mind. 

And time, too; the remoteness of its ori- 
gin no less than the enormity of its pro- 
portions, screens an Egyptian pyramid from 
the easy and familiar contact of our modern 
minds. At its base the common earth ends, 
and all above is a world— one not created 
311 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XIX 



of God, not seeming to be made by men's 
hands, but rather the sheer giant work of 
some old dismal age weighing down this 
younger planet. 

Fine sayings! But the truth seems to 
be, after all, that the Pyramids are quite of 
this world— that they were piled up into 
the air for the realization of some kingly 
crotchets about immortality, some priestly 
longing for burial fees; and that as for the 
building— they were built like coral rocks 
by swarms of insects— by swarms of poor 
Egyptians, who were not only the abject 
tools and slaves of power, but who also ate 
onions for the reward of their immortal 
labors! 1 The Pyramids are quite of this 
world. 

I of course ascended to the summit of 
the Great Pyramid, and also explored its 
chambers; but these I need not describe. 
The first time that I went to the pyramids 
of Gizeh, there were a number of Arabs 
hanging about in its neighborhood, and 
wanting to receive presents on various pre- 
tenses. Their sheik was with them. There 
was also present an ill-looking fellow in 
soldier's uniform. This man, on my depar- 
ture, claimed a reward, on the ground that 

i Herodotus, in an after age, stood by vdth his note-book, and 
got, as be thought, the exact returns of all the rations served 
out. 

312 



Chapter XIX] 



EOTHEN 



he had maintained order and decorum 
amongst the Arabs. His claim was not 
considered valid by my dragoman, and was 
rejected accordingly. My donkey-boys 
afterwards said they had overheard this 
fellow propose to the sheik to put me to 
death whilst I was in the interior of the 
Great Pyramid, and to share with him the 
booty. Fancy a struggle for life in one of 
those burial-chambers, with acres and acres 
of solid masonry between one's self and the 
daylight! I felt exceedingly glad that I had 
not made the rascal a present. 

I visited the very ancient pyramids of 
Abukir and Sakkara. There are many of 
these, differing the one from the other in 
shape as well as size; and it struck me that, 
taken together, they might be looked upon 
as showing the progress and perfection 
(such as it is) of pyramidical architecture. 
One of the pyramids at Sakkara is almost a 
rival for the full-grown monster at Gizeh; 
others are scarcely more than vast heaps 
of brick and stone; and these last suggested 
to me the idea that, after all, the pyramid is 
nothing more nor less than a variety of the 
sepulchral mound so common in most coun- 
tries (including, I believe, Hindustan, from 
whence the Egyptians are supposed to have 
come). Men accustomed to raise these 
313 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XIX 



structures for their dead kings or con- 
querors would carry the usage with them 
in their migrations; but arriving in Egypt, 
and seeing the impossibility of finding earth 
sufficiently tenacious for a mound, they 
would approximate as nearly as might be 
to their ancient custom by raising up a 
round heap of stones— in short, conical pyra- 
mids. Of these there are several at Sak- 
kara, and the materials of some are thrown 
together without any order or regularity. 
The transition from this simple form to 
that of the square angular pyramid was easy 
and natural; and it seemed to me that the 
gradations through which the style passed 
from infancy up to its mature enormity 
could plainly be traced at Sakkara. 



314 



CHAPTER 
XX 



The Sphinx. 



AND near the Pyramids, more won- 
7\ drous and more awful than all else 
JTx. in the land of Egypt, there sits the 
lonely Sphinx. Comely the creature is, but 
the comeliness is not of this world. The once 
worshiped beast is a deformity and a mon- 
ster to this generation; and yet you can see 
that those lips, so thick and heavy, were 
fashioned according to some ancient mold 
of beauty— some mold of beauty now for- 
gotten—forgotten because that Greece drew 
forth Cytherea from the flashing foam of 
the iEgean, and in her image created new 
forms of beauty, and made it a law among 
men that the short and proudly wreathed 
lip should stand for the sign and the main 
condition of loveliness through all genera- 
tions to come. Yet still there lives on the 
race of those who were beautiful in the 
fashion of the Elder World; and Christian 
girls of Coptic blood will look on you with 
315 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XX 



the sad, serious gaze, and kiss you your 
charitable hand with the big pouting lips 
of the very Sphinx. 

Laugh and mock, if you will, at the wor- 
ship of stone idols; but mark ye this, ye 
breakers of images: that in one regard the 
stone idol bears awful semblance of Deity 
— unchangefulness in the midst of change, 
the same seeming will and intent for ever 
and ever inexorable! Upon ancient dynas- 
ties of Ethiopian and Egyptian kings, 
upon Greek and Roman, upon Arab and Ot- 
toman conquerors, upon Napoleon dream- 
ing of an Eastern empire, upon battle and 
pestilence, upon the ceaseless misery of the 
Egyptian race, upon keen-eyed travelers, 
—Herodotus yesterday, and Warburton to- 
day,— upon all and more this unworldly 
Sphinx has watched, and watched like a 
Providence with the same earnest eyes, 
and the same sad, tranquil mien. And we, 
we shall die, and Islam will wither away; 
and the Englishman, straining far over to 
hold his loved India, will plant a firm foot on 
the banks of the Nile and sit in the seats of 
the Faithful, and still that sleepless rock will 
lie watching and watching the works of the 
new busy race with those same sad, earnest 
eyes, and the same tranquil mien everlast- 
ing. You dare not mock at the Sphinx. 
316 



CHAPTER 
XXI 



Cairo to Suez. 



[HE "dromedary" of Egypt and Syria 



is not the two-humped animal de- 



scribed by that name in books of 
natural history, but is in fact of the same 
family as the camel, standing towards his 
more clumsy fellow-slave in about the same 
relation as a racer to a cart-horse. The 
fleetness and endurance of this creature 
are extraordinary. It is not usual to force 
him into a gallop, and I fancy, from his 
make, that it would be quite impossible for 
him to maintain that pace for any length 
of time; but the animal is on so large a 
scale that the jog-trot at which he is gen- 
erally ridden implies a progress of perhaps 
ten or twelve miles an hour, and this pace, it 
is said, he can keep up incessantly, without 
food or water or rest, for three whole days 
and nights. 

Of the two dromedaries which I had ob- 
tained for this journey, I mounted one my- 




317 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXI 



self and put Dthemetri on the other. My 
plan was to ride on with Dthemetri to Suez 
as rapidly as the fleetness of the beasts 
would allow, and to let Mysseri (then still 
remaining weak from the effects of his late 
illness) come quietly on with the camels and 
baggage. 

The trot of the dromedary is a pace terri- 
bly disagreeable to the rider, until he be- 
comes a little accustomed to it; but after 
the first half -hour I so far schooled myself 
to this new exercise that I felt capable of 
keeping it up (though not without aching 
limbs) for several hours together. Now, 
therefore, I was anxious to dart forward 
and annihilate at once the whole space that 
divided me from the Red Sea. Dthemetri, 
however, could not get on at all: every at- 
tempt at trotting seemed to threaten the 
utter dislocation of his whole frame; and 
indeed I doubt whether any one of Dthe- 
metri's age (nearly forty, I think), and unac- 
customed to such exercise, could have borne 
it at all easily. Besides, the dromedary 
which fell to his lot was evidently a very 
bad one; he every now and then came to a 
dead stop, and coolly knelt down, as though 
suggesting that the rider had better get off 
at once, and abandon the experiment as 
one that was utterly hopeless. 

318 



Chapter XXI] 



EOTHEN 



When for the third or fourth time I saw 
Dthemetri thus planted, I lost my patience 
and went on without him. For about two 
hours, I think, I advanced without once 
looking behind me. I then paused, and 
cast my eyes back to the western horizon. 

There was no sign of Dthemetri, nor of any 
other living creature. This I expected, for 
I knew that I must have far outdistanced 
all my followers. I had ridden away from 
my party merely by way of humoring my 
impatience, and with the intention of stop- 
ping as soon as I felt tired, until I was 
overtaken. I now observed, however (this 
I had not been able to do whilst advancing 
so rapidly) that the track which I had been 
following was seemingly the track of only 
one or two camels. I did not fear that I 
had diverged very largely from the true 
route, but still I could not feel any reason- 
able certainty that my party would follow 
any line of march within sight of me. 

I had to consider, therefore, whether I 
should remain where I was upon the chance 
of seeing my people come up, or whether I 
should push on alone, and find my own way 
to Suez. I had now learned that I could 
not rely upon the continued guidance of 
any track, but I knew that (if maps were 
right) the point for which I was bound bore 
319 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXI 



just due east of Cairo, and I thought that 
although I might miss the line leading most 
directly to Suez, I could not well fail to find 
my way, sooner or later, to the Red Sea. 
The worst of it was that I had no provision 
of food or water with me, and already I 
was beginning to feel thirst. I deliberated 
for a minute, and then determined that I 
would abandon all hope of seeing my party 
again in the desert, and would push for- 
ward as rapidly as possible towards Suez. 

It was not without a sensation of awe 
that I swept with my sight the vacant round 
of the horizon, and remembered that I was 
all alone and unprovisioned in the midst of 
the arid waste; but this very awe gave tone 
and zest to the exultation with which I felt 
myself launched. Hitherto in all my wan- 
derings I had been under the care of other 
people— sailors, Tatars, guides, and drago- 
men had watched over my welfare; but now, 
at last, I was here in this African desert, 
and I myself, and no other, had charge of 
my life. I liked the office well. I had the 
greatest part of the day before me, a very 
fair dromedary, a fur pelisse, and a brace 
of pistols, but no bread, and, worst of all, no 
water; for that I must ride— and ride I did. 

For several hours I urged forward my 
beast at a rapid though steady pace, but at 
320 



Chapter XXI] 



EOTHEN 



length the pangs of thirst began to torment 
me. I did not relax my pace, however, and 
I had not suffered long when a moving 
object appeared in the distance before me. 
The intervening space was soon traversed, 
and I found myself approaching a Bedouin 
Arab, mounted on a camel, attended by an- 
other Bedouin on foot. They stopped. I 
saw that there hung from the pack-saddle 
of the camel one of the large skin water- 
flasks commonly carried in the desert, 
and it seemed to be well filled. I steered 
my dromedary close up alongside of the 
mounted Bedouin, caused my beast to kneel 
down, then alighted, and keeping the end 
of the halter in my hand, went up to the 
mounted Bedouin without speaking, took 
hold of his water-flask, opened it, and drank 
long and deep from its leathern lips. Both 
of the Bedouins stood fast in amazement 
and mute horror; and really, if they had 
never happened to see an European before, 
the apparition was enough to startle them. 
To see for the first time a coat and a waist- 
coat with the semblance of a white human 
face at the top, and for this ghastly figure 
to come swiftly out of the horizon upon a 
fleet dromedary, approach them silently 
and with a demoniacal smile, and drink a 
deep draught from their water-flask— this 
21 321 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXI 



was enough to make the Bedouins stare a 
little; they, in fact, stared a great deal— not 
as Europeans stare, with a restless and 
puzzled expression of countenance, but 
with features all fixed and rigid, and with 
still, glassy eyes. Before they had time to 
get decomposed from their state of petri- 
faction, I had remounted my dromedary 
and was darting away towards the east. 

Without pause or remission of pace, I 
continued to press forward; hut after a 
while I found, to my confusion, that the 
slight track which had hitherto guided me 
now failed altogether. I began to fear that 
I must have been all along following the 
course of some wandering Bedouins, and I 
felt that if this were the case my fate was 
a little uncertain. 

I had no compass with me, but I deter- 
mined upon the eastern point of the horizon 
as accurately as I could by reference to the 
sun, and so laid down for myself a way over 
the pathless sands. 

But now my poor dromedary, by whose 
life and strength I held my own, she began 
to show signs of distress; a thick, clammy, 
and glutinous kind of foam gathered about 
her lips, and piteous sobs burst from her 
bosom in the tones of human misery. I 
doubted for a moment whether I would give 
322 



Chapter XXI ] 



EOTHEN 



her a little rest or relaxation of pace, but I 
decided that I would not, and continued to 
push forward as steadily as before. 

The character of the country became 
changed; I had ridden away from the level 
tracts, and before me now, and on either 
side, there were vast hills of sand and cal- 
cined rocks that interrupted my progress 
and baffled my doubtful road; but I did my 
best. With rapid steps I swept round the 
base of the hills, threaded the winding hol- 
lows, and at last, as I rose in my swift 
course to the crest of a lofty ridge, tha- 
latta! thalatta! the sea— the sea was be- 
fore me! 

It has been given me to know the true 
pith and to feel the power of ancient pagan 
creeds, and so (distinctly from all mere 
admiration of the beauty belonging to na- 
ture's works) I acknowledge a sense of 
mystical reverence when first I approached 
some illustrious feature of the globe— some 
coast-line of ocean, some mighty river or 
dreary mountain-range, the ancient barrier 
of kingdoms. But the Red Sea! It might 
well claim my earnest gaze by force of the 
great Jewish migration which connects it 
with the history of our own religion. From 
this very ridge, it is likely enough, the 
panting Israelites first saw that shining 
323 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXI 



inlet of the sea. Aye, aye! but moreover, 
and best of all, that beckoning sea assured 
my eyes, and proved how well I had marked 
out the east for my path, and gave me good 
promise that sooner or later the time would 
come for me to drink of water cool and 
plenteous, and then lie down and rest. It 
was distant, the sea, but I felt my own 
strength, and I had heard of the strength 
of dromedaries. I pushed forward as eager- 
ly as though I had spoiled the Egyptians and 
were flying from Pharaoh's police. 

I had not yet been able to see any mark 
of distant Suez, but after a while I descried 
far away in the east a large, blank, isolated 
building. I made towards this, and in time 
got down to it. The building was a fort, 
and had been built there for the protection 
of a well contained within its precincts. A 
cluster of small huts adhered to the fort, 
and in a short time I was receiving the hos- 
pitality of the inhabitants, a score or so 
of people who sat grouped upon the sands 
near their hamlet. To quench the fires of 
my throat with about a gallon of muddy 
water, and to swallow a little of the food 
placed before me, was the work of a few 
minutes; and before the astonishment of 
my hosts had even begun to subside, I was 
pursuing my onward journey. Suez, I 
324 



Chapter XXI] 



EOTHEN 



found, was still three hours distant, and the 
sun going down in the west warned me 
that I must find some other guide to keep 
me straight. This guide I found in the 
most fickle and uncertain of the elements. 
For some hours the wind had been freshen- 
ing, and it now blew a violent gale; it blew, 
not fitfully and in squalls, but with such 
steadiness that I felt convinced it would 
blow from the same quarter for several 
hours; so when the sun set, I carefully 
looked for the point whence the wind came, 
and found that it blew from the very west 
—blew exactly in the direction of my route. 
I had nothing to do, therefore, but to go 
straight to leeward, and this I found easy 
enough, for the gale was blowing so hard 
that, if I diverged at all from my course, 
I instantly felt the pressure of the blast 
on the side towards which I had deviated. 
Very soon after sunset there came on com- 
plete darkness, but the strong wind guided 
me well, and sped me, too, on my way. 

I had pushed on for about, I think, a 
couple of hours after nightfall, when I saw 
the glimmer of a light in the distance, and 
this, I ventured to hope, must be Suez. 
Upon approaching it, however, I found that 
it was only a solitary fort, and this I passed 
by without stopping. 

325 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXI 



On I went, still riding down the wind; but 
at last an unlucky misfortune befell me— a 
misfortune so absurd that, if you like, you 
shall have your laugh against me. I have 
told you already what sort of lodging it is 
that you have upon the back of a camel. 
You ride the dromedary in the same fash- 
ion: you are perched rather than seated on 
a bunch of carpets or quilts upon the sum- 
mit of the hump. It happened that my 
dromedary veered rather suddenly from 
her onward course. Meeting the move- 
ment, I mechanically turned my left wrist 
as though I were holding a bridle-rein, for 
the complete darkness prevented my eyes 
from reminding me that I had nothing but 
a halter in my hand. The expected resis- 
tance failed, for the halter was hanging upon 
that side of the dromedary's neck towards 
which I was slightly leaning. I toppled over, 
head foremost, and then went falling 
through air till my crown came whang! 
against the ground; and the ground, too, 
was perfectly hard (compacted sand); but 
my thickly wadded head-gear (this I wore 
for protection against the sun) now stood 
me in good part and saved my life. The 
notion of my being able to get up again 
after falling head foremost from such an 
immense height seemed to me at first too 
326 



Chapter XXI ] 



EOTHEN 



paradoxical to be acted upon, "but I soon 
found that I was not a bit hurt. My drome- 
dary had utterly vanished. I looked round 
me, and saw the glimmer of a light in the 
fort which I had lately passed, and I began 
to work my way back in that direction. 
The violence of the gale made it hard for 
me to force my way towards the west, but 
I succeeded at last in regaining the fort. 
To this, as to the other fort which I had 
passed, there was attached a cluster of 
huts, and I soon found myself surrounded 
by a group of villainous, gloomy-looking 
fellows. It was sorry work for me to 
swagger and look big at a time when I felt 
so particularly small on account of my 
tumble and my lost dromedary, but there 
was no help for it; I had no Dthemetri now 
to " strike terror " for me. I knew hardly 
one word of Arabic, but somehow or other 
I contrived to announce it as my absolute 
will and pleasure that these fellows should 
find me the means of gaining Suez. They 
acceded; and having a donkey, they saddled 
it for me, and appointed one of their num- 
ber to attend me on foot. 

I afterwards found that these fellows 
were not Arabs, but Algerine refugees, and 
that they bore the character of being sad 
scoundrels. They justified this imputation 
327 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter. XXI 



to some extent on the following day. They 
allowed Mysseri, with my baggage and the 
camels, to pass unmolested; but an Arab 
lad belonging to the party happened to lag 
a little way in the rear, and him (if they 
were not maligned) these rascals stripped 
and robbed. Low indeed is the state of 
bandit morality when men will allow the 
sleek traveler with well laden camels to 
pass in quiet, reserving their spirit of 
enterprise for the tattered turban of a 
miserable boy. 

I reached Suez at last. The British 
agent, though roused from his midnight 
sleep, received me in his home with the ut- 
most kindness and hospitality. Heaven! 
how delightful it was to lie on fair sheets, 
and to dally with sleep, and to wake, and 
to sleep, and to wake once more, for the 
sake of sleeping again ! 



328 



CHAPTER 
XXII 



Suez. 



I WAS hospitably entertained by the 
British consul, or agent, as he is there 
styled; he is the employee of the East 
India Company, and not of the home gov- 
ernment. Napoleon, during his stay of five 
days at Suez, had been the guest of the con- 
sul's father; and I was told that the divan in 
my apartment had been the bed of the great 
commander. 

There are two opinions as to the point 
where the Israelites passed the Red Sea. 
One is that they traversed only the very 
small creek at the northern extremity of 
the inlet, and that they entered the bed of 
the water at the spot on which Suez now 
stands; the other, that they crossed the sea 
from a point eighteen miles down the coast. 
The Oxford theologians who, with Milman, 
their professor, 1 believe that Jehovah con- 



i See Milman's " History of the Jews," first edition, Family- 
Library. 

329 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXII 



ducted his chosen people without disturb- 
ing the order of nature, adopt the first 
view, and suppose that the Israelites passed 
during an ebb-tide aided by a violent wind. 
One among many objections to this suppo- 
sition is that the time of a single ebb would 
not have been sufficient for the passage of 
that vast multitude of men and beasts, or 
even for a small fraction of it. Moreover, 
the creek to the north of this point can be 
compassed in an hour, and in two hours 
you can make the circuit of the salt-marsh 
over which the sea may have extended in 
former times. If, therefore, the Israelites 
crossed so high up as Suez, the Egyptians, 
unless infatuated by divine interference, 
might easily have recovered their stolen 
goods from the encumbered fugitives by 
making a slight detour. The opinion which 
fixes the point of passage at eighteen miles' 
distance, and from thence right across the 
ocean depths to the eastern side of the sea, 
is supported by the unanimous tradition of 
the people, whether Christians or Mussul- 
mans, and is consistent with Holy Writ: 
"The waters were a wall unto them on 
their right hand, and on their left." The 
Cambridge mathematicians seem to think 
that the Israelites were enabled to pass 
over dry land by adopting a route not usu- 
330 



Chapter XXII ] 



EOTHEN 



ally subjected to the influx of the sea. This 
notion is plausible in a mere hydrostatical 
point of view, but it is difficult to reconcile 
it with the account given in Exodus, unless 
we can suppose that the words " sea " and 
"waters" are there used in a sense imply- 
ing dry land. 

Napoleon, when at Suez, made an attempt 
to follow the supposed steps of Moses by 
passing the creek at this point; but it 
seems, according to the testimony of the 
people of Suez, that he and his horsemen 
managed the matter in a way more resem- 
bling the failure of the Egyptians than the 
success of the Israelites. According to the 
French account, Napoleon got out of 
the difficulty by that warrior-like presence 
of mind which served him so well when the 
fate of nations depended on the decision of 
a moment: he commanded his horsemen to 
disperse in all directions, in order to multi- 
ply the chances of finding shallow water, 
and was thus enabled to discover a line by 
which he and his people were extricated. 
The story told by the people of Suez is very 
different: they declare that Napoleon parted 
from his horse, got water-logged and nearly 
drowned, and was only fished out by the 
aid of the people on shore. 

I bathed twice at the point assigned to 
331 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXII 



the passage of the Israelites, and the sec- 
ond time that I did so, I chose the time of 
low water and tried to walk across; but I 
soon found myself out of my depths, or at 
least in water so deep that I could only ad- 
vance by swimming. 

The dromedary which had bolted in the 
desert was brought into Suez the day of 
my arrival; but the treasures attached to 
the saddle, including my pelisse and my 
dearest pistols, had disappeared. These 
things were of great importance to me at 
that time, and I moved the Governor of the 
town to make all possible exertions for their 
recovery. He acceded to my wishes as well 
as he could, and very obligingly imprisoned 
the first seven poor fellows he could lay his 
hands on. 

At first the Governor acted in the matter 
from no other motive than that of courtesy 
to an English traveler; but afterwards, and 
when he saw the value I set upon the lost 
property, he pushed his measures with a 
degree of alacrity and heat which seemed 
to show that he felt a personal interest in 
the matter. It was supposed either that 
he expected a large present in the event of 
succeeding, or that he was striving by all 
means to trace the property in order that he 
might lay his hands on it after my departure. 
332 



Chapter XXII ] 



EOTHEN 



I went out sailing for some hours, and 
when I returned I was horrified to find that 
two men had been bastinadoed by order of 
the Governor, with a view to force them to 
a confession of their theft. It appeared, 
however, that there really was good ground 
for supposing them guilty, since one of the 
holsters was actually found in their posses- 
sion. It was said, too (but I could hardly 
believe it), that whilst one of the men was 
undergoing the bastinado, his comrade was 
overheard encouraging him to bear the tor- 
ment without peaching. Both men, if they 
had the secret, were resolute in keeping it, 
and were sent back to their dungeon. I of 
course took care that there should be no 
repetition of the torture, at least so long as 
I remained at Suez. 

The Governor was a thorough Oriental, 
and until a comparatively recent period had 
shared in the old Mohammedan feeling of 
contempt for Europeans. It happened, 
however, one day, that an English gun-brig 
had appeared off Suez, and sent her boats 
ashore to take in fresh water. Now fresh 
water at Suez is a somewhat scarce and 
precious commodity; it is kept in tanks, 
and the largest of these is at some distance 
from the place. Under these circum- 
stances, the request for fresh water was re- 
333 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXII 



fused, or at all events was not complied 
with. The captain of the brig was a simple- 
minded man with a strongish will, and he 
at once declared that if his casks were not 
filled in three hours he would destroy the 
whole place. "A great people indeed!" 
said the Governor. "A wonderful people, 
the English!" He instantly caused every 
cask to be filled to the brim from his own 
tank, and ever afterwards entertained for 
our countrymen a high degree of affection 
and respect. 

The day after the abortive attempt to ex- 
tract a confession from the prisoners, the 
Governor, the consul, and I sat in council, I 
know not how long, with a view of prose- 
cuting the search for the stolen goods. The 
sitting, considered in the light of a criminal 
investigation, was characteristic of the 
East. The proceedings began, as a matter 
of course, by the prosecutor's smoking a 
pipe and drinking coffee with the judge, 
jury, and sheriff— that is, with the Gov- 
ernor, for in this one personage were vested 
almost all the functions connected with the 
administration of injustice. I got on very 
well with my host (this was not my first 
interview), and he gave me the pipe from 
his lips in testimony of his friendship. I 
recollect, however, that my prime adviser, 
334 



Chapter XXII ] 



EOTHEN 



thinking me, I suppose, a great deal too shy 
and retiring in my manner, entreated me to 
put up my boots and to soil the Governor's 
divan, in order to inspire respect and strike 
terror. I thought it would be as well for me 
to retain the right of respecting myself, and 
that it was not quite necessary for a well- 
received guest to strike any terror at all. 

Our deliberations were assisted by the 
numerous attendants who lined the three 
sides of the room not occupied by the divan. 
Any one of these who took it into his head 
to offer a suggestion would stand forward 
and humble himself before the Governor, and 
then state his views; every man thus giving 
counsel was listened to with some attention. 

After a great deal of fruitless planning, 
the Governor directed that the prisoners 
should be brought in. I was shocked when 
they entered, for I was not prepared to see 
them come carried into the room upon the 
shoulders of others. It had not occurred 
to me that their battered feet would be too 
sore to bear the contact of the floor. They 
persisted in asserting their innocence. The 
Governor wanted to recur to the torture, 
but that I prevented, and the men were 
lifted back to their dungeon. 

One of the attendants now suggested a 
scheme— a scheme which seemed to me 
335 

I 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXII 



most childishly absurd, but nevertheless it 
was tried. A man went down to the dun- 
geon with instructions to make the prison- 
ers believe that he had gained permission 
to see them upon some invented pretext; 
and when the spy had thus won a little of 
their confidence, he was to attempt a sham 
treaty with them for the purchase of the 
stolen goods. This shallow expedient failed. 

The Governor himself had not nominally 
the power of life and death over the people 
in his district, but he could, if he chose, 
send them to Cairo, and have them hanged 
there. I proposed that the prisoners 
should be threatened with this fate. The 
answer of the Governor made me feel rather 
ashamed of my effeminate suggestion. He 
said that if I wished it he would willingly 
threaten them with death; but he also de- 
clared that if he threatened, he surely would 
make his words good. 

Thinking at last that nothing was to be 
gained by keeping the prisoners any longer 
in confinement, I requested that they might 
be set free. To this the Governor assented, 
though only, as he said, out of favor to me, 
for he had a strong impression that the 
men were guilty. I went down to see the 
prisoners let out with my own eyes. They 
were very grateful, and fell down to the 
336 



Chapter XXII ] 



EOTHEN 



earth, kissing my boots. I gave them a 
present to console them for their wounds, 
and they seemed to be highly delighted. 

Although the matter ended in a manner 
so satisfactory to the principal sufferers, 
there were symptoms of some angry excite- 
ment in the place: it was said that public 
opinion was much shocked at the fact that 
Mohammedans had been beaten on account 
of a loss sustained by a Christian. My 
journey was to recommence the next day, 
and it was hinted that if I persevered in 
my intention of going forward into the 
desert the people would have an easy and 
profitable opportunity of wreaking their 
vengeance on me. If ever they formed any 
scheme of the kind, they at all events re- 
frained from any attempt to carry it into 
effect. 

One of the evenings during my stay at 
Suez was enlivened by a triple wedding. 
There was a long and slow procession. 
Some carried torches, and others were 
thumping drums and firing pistols. The 
bridegrooms came last, all walking abreast. 
My only reason for mentioning the cere- 
mony is that I scarcely ever in all my life 
saw any phenomena so ridiculous as the 
meekness and gravity of those three young 
men whilst being "led to the altar." 
22 337 



CHAPTER 
XXIII 



Suez to Gaza, 



f | ^HE route over the desert from Suez 



to Gaza is not frequented by mer- 



JL chants, and is seldom passed by a 
traveler. This part of the country is less 
uniformly barren than the tracts of shift- 
ing sand that lie on the El Arish route. 
The shrubs yielding food for the camel are 
more frequent, and in many spots the sand 
is mingled with so much of productive soil 
as to admit the growth of corn.. The Bed- 
ouins are driven out of this district during 
the summer by the want of water; but be- 
fore the time for their forced departure ar- 
rives, they succeed in raising little crops 
of barley from these comparatively fertile 
patches of ground. They bury the fruit of 
their labors, and take care so to mark the 
spot chosen that when they return they 
can easily find their hidden treasures. The 
warm, dry sand stands them for a safe 
granary. The country, at the time I passed 




338 



I 



Chapter XXIH] 



EOTHEN 



it (in the month of April), was pretty thickly 
sprinkled with Bedouins expecting their 
harvest; several times my tent was pitched 
alongside of their encampments; but I have 
already told you all I wanted to tell about 
the domestic— or rather the castral— life of 
the Arabs. 

I saw several creatures of the antelope 
kind in this part of the desert; and one day 
my Arabs surprised in her sleep a young 
gazelle (for so I called her), and took the 
darling prisoner. I carried her before me 
on my camel for the rest of the day, and 
kept her in my tent all night. I did all I 
could to gain her affections, but the trem- 
bling beauty refused to touch food, and 
would not be comforted; whenever she had 
a seeming opportunity of escaping, she 
struggled with a violence so painfully dis- 
proportioned to her fine, delicate limbs that 
I could not go on with the cruel attempt to 
make her my own. In the morning, there- 
fore, I set her loose, anticipating some 
pleasure from the joyous bound with which, 
as I thought, she would return to her native 
freedom. She had been so stupefied, how- 
ever, by the exciting events of the preced- 
ing day and night, and was so puzzled as to 
the road she should take, that she went off 
very deliberately, and with an uncertain 
339 

I 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXin 



step. She was quite sound in limb, but she 
looked so idiotic that I fancied her intellect 
might have been really upset. Never, in all 
likelihood, had she seen the form of a hu- 
man being until the dreadful moment when 
she woke from her sleep and found herself 
in the gripe of an Arab. Then her pitching 
and tossing journey on the back of a camel, 
and, lastly, a soiree with me by candle-light! 
I should have been glad to know, if I could, 
that her heart was not broken. 

My Arabs were somewhat excited, one 
day, by discovering the fresh print of a foot 
—the foot, as they said, of a lion. I had no 
conception that the lord of the forest (bet- 
ter known as a crest) ever stalked away 
from his jungles to make inglorious war in 
these smooth plains against antelopes and 
gazelles. I supposed that there must have 
been some error of interpretation, and that 
the Arabs meant to speak of a tiger. It 
appeared, however, that this was not the 
case; either the Arabs were mistaken, or 
the noble brute, uncooped and unchained, 
had but lately crossed my path. 

The camels with which I traversed this 
part of the desert were very different in 
their ways and habits from those that you 
hire on a frequented route. They were 
never led. There was not the slightest 
340 



Chapter XXIII ] 



EOTHEN 



sign of a track in this part of the desert, 
hut the camels never failed to choose the 
right line. By the direction taken at start- 
ing, they knew the point (some encamp- 
ment, I suppose) for which they were to 
make. There is always a leading camel 
(generally, I believe,* the eldest), who 
marches foremost and determines the path 
for the whole party. When it happens that 
no one of the camels has been accustomed 
to lead the others, there is very great diffi- 
culty in making a start; if you force your 
beast forward for a moment, he will con- 
trive to wheel and draw back, at the same 
time looking at one of the other camels 
with an expression and gesture exactly 
equivalent to apres vous. The responsi- 
bility of finding the way- is evidently as- 
sumed very unwillingly. After some time, 
however, it becomes understood that one of 
the beasts has reluctantly consented to take 
the lead, and he accordingly advances for 
that purpose. For a minute or two he 
marches with great indecision, taking first 
one line and then another; but soon, by the 
aid of some mysterious sense, he discovers 
the true direction, and thenceforward keeps 
to it steadily, going on from morning to 
night. When once the leadership is estab- 
lished, you cannot by any persuasion, and 
341 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXIII 



scarcely even by blows, induce a junior 
camel to walk one single step in advance 
of the chosen guide. 

On the fifth day I came to an oasis, called 
the Wady el Arish, a ravine, or rather a 
gully. Through this during the greater part 
of the year there runs a stream of water. 
On the sides of the gully there were a num- 
ber of those graceful trees which the Arabs 
call tarfa. The channel of the stream was 
quite dry in the part at which we arrived; 
but at about half a mile off some water was 
found, and this, though very muddy, was 
tolerably sweet. Here was indeed a happy 
discovery, for all the water we had brought 
from the neighborhood of Suez was rapidly 
putrefying. 

The want of foresight is an anomalous 
part of the Bedouin's character, for it does 
not result either from recklessness or stu- 
pidity. I know of no human being whose 
body is so thoroughly the slave of mind as 
the Arab. His mental anxieties seem to be 
forever torturing every nerve and fiber of 
his body; and yet, with all this exquisite 
sensitiveness to the suggestions of the 
mind, he is grossly improvident. I recol- 
lect, for instance, that when setting out 
upon this passage of the desert, my Arabs 
(in order to lighten the burden of their 
342 



Chapter XXIII ] 



EOTHEN 



camels) were most anxious that we should 
take with us no more than two days' sup- 
ply of water. They said that by the time 
that supply was exhausted we should arrive 
at a spring which would furnish us for the 
rest of the journey. My servants very 
wisely, and with much pertinacity, resisted 
the adoption of this plan, and took care to 
have both the large skins well filled. We 
went on, and found no water at all, either at 
the expected spring or for many days after- 
wards, so that nothing but the precaution 
of my own people saved us from the very 
severe suffering which we should have en- 
dured if we had entered upon the desert 
with only a two days' supply. The Arabs 
themselves, being on foot, would have suf- 
fered much more than I from the conse- 
quences of their improvidence. 

This want of foresight prevents the 
Bedouin from appreciating at a distance of 
eight or ten days the amount of the misery 
which he entails upon himself at the end of 
that period. His dread of a city is one of 
the most painful mental affections that I 
have ever observed, and yet, when the whole 
breadth of the desert lies between him and 
the town you are going to, he will freely 
enter into an agreement to land you in the 
city for which you are bound. When, how- 
343 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXIII 



ever, after many a day of toil, the distant 
minarets at length appear, the poor Bedouin 
relaxes the vigor of his pace; his steps be- 
come faltering and undecided; every mo- 
ment his uneasiness increases; and at 
length he fairly sobs aloud, and, embracing 
your knees, implores, with the most piteous 
cries and gestures, that you will dispense 
with him and his camels, and find some 
other means of entering the city. This, of 
course, one can't agree to, and the conse- 
quence is that one is obliged to witness 
and resist the most moving expressions 
of grief and fond entreaty. I had to go 
through a most painful scene of this kind 
when I entered Cairo, and now the horror 
which these wilder Arabs felt at the notion 
of entering Gaza led to consequences still 
more distressing. The dread of cities re- 
sults partly from a kind of wild instinct 
which has always characterized the de- 
scendants of Ishmael, but partly, too, from 
a well founded apprehension of ill-treat- 
ment. So often it befalls the poor Bedouin 
(when once entrapped between walls) to be 
seized by the Government authorities for 
the sake of his camels that his innate hor- 
ror of cities becomes really justified by 
results. 

The Bedouins with whom I performed 
344 



Chapter XXIII ] 



EOTHEN 



this journey were wild fellows of the des- 
ert, quite unaccustomed to let out them- 
selves or their beasts for hire; and when 
they found that by the natural ascendancy 
of Europeans they were gradually brought 
down to a state of subserviency to me, or 
rather to my attendants, they bitterly re- 
pented, I believe, of having placed them- 
selves under our control. They were rather 
difficult fellows to manage, and gave Dthe- 
metri a good deal of trouble, but I liked 
them all the better for that. 

Selim, the chief of the party, and the man 
to whom all our camels belonged, was a fine, 
savage, stately fellow. There were, I think, 
five other Arabs of the party; but when we 
approached the end of the journey, they, 
one by one, began to make off towards the 
neighboring encampments, and by the time 
that the minarets of Gaza were in sight, 
Selim, the owner of the camels, was the 
only one who remained. He, poor fellow, 
as we neared the town, began to discover 
the same terrors that my Arabs had shown 
when I entered Cairo. I could not possibly 
accede to his entreaties, and consent to let 
my baggage be laid down on the bare sands, 
without any means of having it brought 
on into the city. So at length, when poor 
Selim had exhausted all his rhetoric of 
345 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXIII 



voice and action and tears, he fixed his de- 
spairing eyes for a minute upon the cher- 
ished beasts that were his only wealth, and 
then suddenly and madly dashed away into 
the farther desert. I continued my course, 
and reached the city at last, but it was not 
without immense difficulty that we could 
constrain the poor camels to pass under 
the hated shadow of its walls. They were 
the genuine beasts of the desert, and it was 
sad and painful to witness the agony they 
suffered when thus they were forced to en- 
counter the fixed habitations of men. They 
shrank from the beginning of every high, 
narrow street as though from the entrance 
of some horrible cave or bottomless pit; 
they sighed and wept like women. When 
at last we got them within the courtyard 
of the khan, they seemed to be quite 
broken-hearted, and looked round piteously 
for their loving master; but no Selim came. 
I had imagined that he would enter the 
town secretly by night, in order to carry 
off those five fine camels, his only wealth 
in this world, and seemingly the main ob- 
jects of his affection. But no; his dread 
of civilization was too strong. During the 
whole of the three days that I remained at 
Gaza he failed to show himself, and thus 
sacrificed, in all probability, not only his 
346 



Chapter XXIII ] 



EOTHEN 



camels, but the money which I had stipu- 
lated to pay him for the passage of the 
desert. In order, however, to do all I could 
towards saving him from this last misfor- 
tune, I resorted to a contrivance frequently 
adopted by the Asiatics. I assembled a 
group of grave and worthy Mussulmans in 
the courtyard of the khan, and in their 
presence paid over the gold to a sheik well 
known in the place and accustomed to 
communicate with the Arabs of the desert. 
Then all present solemnly promised that, if 
ever Selim should come to claim his rights, 
they would bear true witness in his favor. 

I saw a great deal of my old friend the 
Governor of Gaza. He had received orders 
to send back all persons coming from Egypt, 
and force them to perform quarantine at 
El Arish. He knew so little of quarantine 
regulations, however, that his dress was 
actually in contact with mine whilst he in- 
sisted upon the stringency of the orders 
which he had received. He was induced to 
make an exception in my favor, and I re- 
warded him with a musical snuff-box— a 
toy which I had bought at Smyrna for the 
purpose of presenting it to any man in 
authority who might happen to do me an 
important service. The Governor was de- 
lighted with the gift, and in great exulta- 
347 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXIII 



tion and glee he carried it off to his harem. 
Soon, however, poor fellow, he returned 
with an altered countenance: his wives, he 
said, had got hold of the box, and had put 
it quite out of order. So short-lived is 
human happiness in this frail world! 

The Governor fancied that he should 
incur less risk if I remained at Gaza for two 
or three days more, and he wanted me to 
become his guest. I persuaded him, how- 
ever, that it would be better for him to let 
me depart at once. He wanted to add to 
my baggage a roast lamb and a quantity of 
other cumbrous viands, but I escaped with 
half a horse-load of leaven-bread; this was 
very good of its kind, and proved a most 
useful present. The air with which the 
Governor's slaves affected to be almost 
breaking down under the weight of the 
gifts reminded me of the figures one sees 
in some of the old pictures. 



348 



CHAPTER 
XXIV 



Gaza to Nablus. 



ASSING now once again through Pal- 



I— * estine and Syria, I retained the tent 
X which I had used in the desert, and 
found that it added very much to my com- 
fort in traveling. Instead of turning out a 
family from some wretched dwelling, and 
depriving them of rest without gaining rest 
for myself, I now, when evening came, 
pitched my tent upon some smiling spot 
within a few hundred yards of the village 
to which I looked for my supplies— that is, 
for milk, for bread (if I had it not with me), 
and sometimes also for eggs. The worst 
of it was that the needful viands were not to 
he obtained by coin, but only by intimida- 
tion. I at first tried the usual agent- 
money. Dthemetri, with one or two of my 
Arabs, went into the village near which I 
was encamped, and tried to buy the required 
provisions, offering liberal payment; but 
he came back empty-handed. I sent him 




349 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXIV 



again, but this time he held different lan- 
guage: he required to see the elders of the 
place, and, threatening dreadful vengeance, 
commanded them upon their responsibility 
to take care that my tent should be im- 
mediately and abundantly supplied. He 
was obeyed at once; and the provisions re- 
fused to me as a purchaser soon arrived, 
trebled or quadrupled, when demanded by 
way of a forced contribution. I quickly 
found (I think it required two experiments 
to convince me) that this peremptory 
method was the only one which could be 
adopted with success; it never failed. Of 
course, however, when the provisions have 
been actually obtained, you can, if you 
choose, give money exceeding the value of 
the provisions to somebody; an English— a 
thoroughbred English traveler will always 
do this (though it is contrary to the custom 
of the country) for the quiet (false quiet 
though it be) of his own conscience: but so 
to order the matter that the poor fellows 
who have been forced to contribute should 
be the persons to receive the value of their 
supplies is not possible; for a traveler to 
attempt anything so grossly just as that 
would be too outrageous. The truth is that 
the usage of the East in old times required 
the people of the village at their own cost 
350 



Chapter XXIV ] 



EOTHEN 



to supply the wants of travelers; and the 
ancient custom is now adhered to— not in 
favor of travelers generally, but in favor of 
those who are deemed sufficiently power- 
ful to enforce its observance. If the villag- 
ers, therefore, find a man waiving this right 
to oppress them, and offering coin for that 
which he is entitled to take without pay- 
ment, they suppose at once that he is 
actuated by fear (fear of them, poor fel- 
lows!); and it is so delightful to them to 
act upon this nattering assumption that 
they will forego the advantage of a good 
price for their provisions rather than the 
rare luxury of refusing for once in their 
lives to part with their own possessions. 

The practice of intimidation thus ren- 
dered necessary is utterly hateful to an 
Englishman. He finds himself forced to 
conquer his daily bread by the pompous 
threats of the dragoman— his very subsis- 
tence, as well as his dignity and personal 
safety, being made to depend upon his 
servant's assuming a tone of authority 
which does not at all belong to him. Be- 
sides, he can scarcely fail to see that, as he 
passes through the country, he becomes 
the innocent cause of much extra injus- 
tice—many supernumerary wrongs. This 
he feels to be especially the case when he 
351 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXIV 



travels with relays. To be the owner of a 
horse or a mule within reach of an Asiatic 
potentate is to lead the life of the hare 
and the rabbit— hunted down and ferreted 
out. Too often it happens that the works 
of the field are stopped in the daytime, 
that the inmates of the cottage are roused 
from their midnight sleep, by the sudden 
coming of a Government officer; and the 
poor husbandman, driven by threats and 
rewarded by curses, if he would not lose 
sight forever of his captured beasts must 
quit all and follow them. This is done that 
the Englishman may travel. He would 
make his way more harmlessly if he could; 
but horses or mules he must have, and 
these are his ways and means. 

The town of Nablus is beautiful. It lies 
in a valley hemmed in with olive-groves, 
and its buildings are interspersed with 
frequent' palm-trees. It is said to occupy 
the site of the ancient Shechem. I know 
not whether it was there, indeed, that the 
father of the Jews was accustomed to feed 
his flocks, but the valley is green and smil- 
ing, and is held at this day by a race more 
brave and beautiful than Jacob's unhappy 
descendants. 

Nablus is the very furnace of Moham- 
medan bigotry; and I believe that only a 
352 



Chapter XXIV ] 



EOTHEN 



few months before the time of my going 
there it would have been madly rash for a 
man, unless strongly guarded, to show 
himself to the people of the town in a 
Frank costume; but since their last insur- 
rection the Mohammedans of the place 
had been so far subdued by the severity of 
Ibrahim Pasha that they dared not now 
offer the slightest insult to an European. 
It was quite plain, however, that the effort 
with which the men of the old school re- 
frained from expressing their opinion of a 
hat and a coat was horribly painful to them. 
As I walked through the streets and ba- 
zaars a dead silence prevailed. Every man 
suspended his employment, and gazed on 
me with a fixed glassy look, which seemed 
to say: "God is good; but how marvelous 
and inscrutable are his ways, that thus he 
permits this white-faced dog of a Chris- 
tian to hunt through the paths of the 
Faithful!" 

The insurrection of these people had 
been more formidable than any other that 
Ibrahim Pasha had to contend with; he 
was only able to crush them at last by 
the assistance of a fellow renowned for his 
resources in the way of stratagem and cun- 
ning, as well as for his knowledge of the 
country. This personage was no other than 
23 353 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXIV 



Aboo Goosh ("the father of lies" 1 ). The 
man had been suddenly taken out of prison 
and sent into his native hill-country, with 
orders to procreate a few choice falsehoods 
and snares for entrapping the rebellious 
mountaineers; and he performed his func- 
tion so well that he quickly enabled 
Ibrahim to hem in and extinguish the in- 
surrection. He was rewarded with the 
governorship of Jerusalem, and this he 
held when I was there. I recollect, by the 
by, that he tried one of his stratagems upon 
me. I had not gone to see him (as I ought 
in courtesy to have done) upon my arrival at 
Jerusalem, but I happened to be the owner 
of a rather handsome amber chibouk-piece; 
this the Governor heard of, and having 
also by some means contrived to see it, he 
sent me a softly worded message with an 
offer to buy the pipe at a price immensely 
exceeding the sum I had given for it. He 
did not add my chibouk to the rest of his 
trophies. 

There was a small number of Greek 
Christians resident in Nablus, and over 
these the Mussulmans held a high hand, 

i This is an appellation not implying blame, but merit; 
the "lies" which it purports to affiliate are feints and cun- 
ning stratagems rather than the baser kind of falsehoods. 
The expression, in short, has nearly the same meaning as the 
English word li Yorkshireman. '' 

354 



Chapter XXIV] 



EOTHEN 



not even allowing them to speak to each 
other in the open streets. But if the Mos- 
lems thus set themselves above the poor 
Christians of the place, I, or rather my 
servants, soon took the ascendant over 
them. I recollect that just as we were 
starting from the place, and at a time when 
a number of people had gathered together 
in the main street to see our preparations, 
Mysseri, being provoked at some piece of 
perverseness on the part of a true believer, 
coolly thrashed him with his horsewhip 
before the assembled crowd of fanatics. I 
was much annoyed at the time, for I thought 
that the people would probably rise against 
us. They turned rather pale, but stood 
still. 

The day of my arrival at Nablus was a 
fete— the New Year's Day of the Mussul- 
mans. 1 Most of the people were amusing 
themselves in the beautiful lawns and 
shady groves without the city. The men 
were all remotely apart from the other sex. 
The women in groups were diverting them- 
selves and their children with swings. They 
were so handsome that they could not keep 
up their yashmaks ; I believed that they 
had never before looked upon a man in the 
European dress, and when they now saw 

1 The 29th of April. 
355 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXIV 



in me that strange phenomenon, and saw, 
too, how they could please the creature by 
showing him a glimpse of beauty, they 
seemed to think it more pleasant to do this 
than to go on playing with swings. It was 
always, however, with a sort of zoological 
expression of countenance that they looked 
on the horrible monster from Europe; and 
whenever one of them gave me to see for 
one sweet instant the blushing of her un- 
veiled face, it was with the same kind of 
air as that with which a young, timid girl 
will edge her way up to an elephant, and 
tremblingly give him a nut from the tips 
of her rosy fingers. 



356 



CHAPTER 
XXV 



Mariana- 



f I ^HERE is no spirit of propagandism in 
I the Mussulmans of the Ottoman do- 
JL minions. True it is that a prisoner 
of war, or a Christian condemned to death, 
may on some occasions save his life by 
adopting the religion of Mohammed, but 
instances of this kind are now exceeding- 
ly rare, and are quite at variance with the 
general system. Many Europeans, I think, 
would be surprised to learn that which is 
nevertheless quite true, namely, that an at- 
tempt to disturb the religious repose of the 
empire by the conversion of a Christian to 
the Mohammedan faith is positively illegal. 
The event which now I am going to men- 
tion shows plainly enough that the unlaw- 
fulness of such interference is distinctly 
recognized even in one of the most bigoted 
strongholds of Islam. 

During my stay at Nablus I took up my 
quarters at the house of the Greek "papa," 
357 

i 

I 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter, XXV 



as he is called— that is, the Greek priest. 
The priest himself had gone to Jerusalem 
upon the business I am going to tell you 
of, hut his wife remained at Nablus, and 
did the honors of her home. 

Soon after my arrival, a deputation from 
the Greek Christians of the place came to 
request my interference in a matter which 
had occasioned vast excitement. 

And now I must tell you how it came to 
happen, as it did continually, that people 
thought it worth while to claim the assis- 
tance of a mere traveler, who was totally de- 
void of all just pretensions to authority or 
influence of even the humblest description; 
and especially Jl must explain to you how 
it was that the power thus attributed did 
really in some measure belong to me, or 
rather to my dragoman. Successive politi- 
cal convulsions had at length fairly loosed 
the people of Syria from their former rules 
of conduct and from all their old habits of 
reliance. Mehemet Ali's success in crush- 
ing the insurrection of the Mohammedan 
population had utterly beaten down the 
head of Islam, and extinguished, for the 
time at least, those virtues and vices which 
spring from the Mohammedan faith. Suc- 
cess so complete as Mehemet Ali's, if it had 
been attained by an ordinary Asiatic poten- 
358 



Chapter XXV] 



EOTHEN 



tate, would have induced a notion of stabil- 
ity. The readily bowing mind of the Oriental 
would have bowed low and long under the 
feet of a conqueror whom God had thus 
strengthened. But Syria was no field for 
contests strictly Asiatic— Europe was in- 
volved; and though the heavy masses of 
Egyptian troops, clinging with strong gripe 
to the land, might seem to hold it fast, yet 
every peasant practically felt and knew 
that in Vienna, or Petersburg, or London, 
there were four or five pale-looking men 
who could pull down the star of the Pasha 
with shreds of paper and ink. The people 
of the country knew, too, that Mehemet 
Ali was strong with the strength of the 
Europeans— strong by his French general, 
his French tactics, and his English engines. 
Moreover, they saw that the person, the 
property, and even the dignity of the hum- 
blest European was guarded with the most 
careful solicitude. The consequence of all 
this was that the people of Syria looked 
vaguely but confidently to Europe for fresh 
changes; many would fix upon some nation, 
France or England, and steadfastly regard 
it as the arriving sovereign of Syria. Those 
whose minds remained in doubt equally con- 
tributed to this new state of public opinion— 
a state of opinion no longer depending upon 
359 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXV 



religion and ancient habits, but upon bare 
hopes and fears. Every man wanted to 
know, not who was his neighbor, but who 
was to be his ruler; whose feet he was 
to kiss, and by whom his feet were to be 
ultimately beaten. Treat your friend, says 
the proverb, as though he were one day to 
become your enemy, and your enemy as 
though he were one day to become your 
friend. The Syrians went further, and 
seemed inclined to treat every stranger as 
though he might one day become their 
pasha. Such was the state of circum- 
stances and of feeling which now for the 
first time had thoroughly opened the mind 
of western Asia for the reception of Eu- 
ropeans and European ideas. The credit 
of the English especially was so great that 
a good Mussulman flying from the conscrip- 
tion or any other persecution would come 
to seek from the formerly despised hat 
that protection which the turban could no 
longer afford; and a man high in authority 
(as, for instance, the Governor in command 
of Gaza) would think that he had won a 
prize, or at all events a valuable lottery- 
ticket, if he obtained a written approval of 
his conduct from a simple traveler. 

Still, in order that any immediate result 
should follow from all this unwonted readi- 
360 



Chapter XXV ] 



EOTHEN 



ness in the Asiatic to succumb to the 
European, it was necessary that some one 
should he at hand who could see and would 
push the advantage. I myself had neither 
the inclination nor the power to do so; but 
it happened that Dthemetri, who, as my 
dragoman, represented me on all occasions, 
was the very person of all others best fitted 
to avail himself with success of this yield- 
ing tendency in the Oriental mind. If the 
chance of birth and fortune had made poor 
Dthemetri a tailor during some part of his 
life, yet religion and the literature of the 
church which he served had made him a 
man, and a brave man, too. The lives of 
his honored saints were full of heroic ac- 
tions provoking imitation; and since faith 
in a creed involves a faith in its ultimate 
triumph, Dthemetri was bold from a sense 
of true strength. His education, too, though 
not very general in its character, had been 
carried quite far enough to justify him in 
pluming himself upon a very decided ad- 
vantage over the great bulk of the Mo- 
hammedan population, including the men 
in authority. With all this consciousness of 
religious and intellectual superiority, Dthe- 
metri had lived for the most part in coun- 
tries lying under Mussulman governments, 
and had witnessed (perhaps, too, had suf- 
361 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXV 



fered from) their revolting cruelties; the re- 
sult was that he abhorred and despised the 
Mohammedan faith and all who clung to it. 
And this hate was not of the dry, dull, and 
inactive sort; Dthemetri was in his sphere 
a true crusader, and whenever there ap- 
peared a fair opening in the defenses of 
Islam, he was ready and eager to make the 
assault. Such feelings, backed by a con- 
sciousness of understanding the people 
with whom he had to do, made Dthemetri 
not only firm and resolute in his constant 
interviews with men in authority, but 
sometimes also (as you may know al- 
ready) very violent and even insulting. 
This tone, which I always disliked, though 
I was fain to profit by it, invariably 
succeeded; it swept away all resistance; 
there was nothing in the then depressed 
and succumbing mind of the Mussulman 
that could oppose a zeal so warm and 
fierce. 

As for me, I of course stood aloof from 
Dthemetri's crusades, and did not even ren- 
der him any active assistance when he was 
striving (as he almost always was, poor fel- 
low!) on my behalf; I was only the death's- 
head and white sheet with which he scared 
the enemy. I think, however, that I played 
this spectral part exceedingly well, for I 
362 



Chapter XXV ] 



EOTHEN 



seldom appeared at all in any discussion, 
and whenever I did, I was sure to be white 
and calm. 

The event which induced the Christians 
of Nablus to seek for my assistance was 
this: A beautiful young Christian, between 
fifteen and sixteen years old, had lately been 
married to a man of her own creed. About 
the same time (probably on the occasion of 
her wedding) she was accidentally seen by 
a Mussulman sheik of great wealth and 
local influence. The man instantly became 
madly enamoured of her. That strict mo- 
rality so generally prevailing wherever the 
Mussulmans have complete ascendancy pre- 
vented the sheik from entertaining any such 
sinful hopes as a Christian might have 
ventured to cherish under the like circum- 
stances, and he saw no chance of gratifying 
his love except by inducing the girl to em- 
brace his own creed. If he could get her to 
take this step, her marriage with the Chris- 
tian would be dissolved, and then there 
would be nothing to prevent him from mak- 
ing her the last and brightest of his wives. 
The sheik was a practical man, and quickly 
began his attack upon the theological opin- 
ions of the bride. He did not assail her with 
the eloquence of any imams or Mussulman 
saints; he did not press upon her the eter- 
363 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXV 



nal truths of "the Cow," 1 or the beautiful 
morality of "the Table" 1 ; he sent her no 
tracts— not even a copy of the holy Koran. 
An old woman acted as missionary. She 
brought with her a whole basketful of argu- 
ments—jewels and shawls and scarfs and 
all kinds of persuasive finery. Poor Mari- 
am! she put on the jewels and took a calm 
view of the Mohammedan religion in a little 
hand-mirror— she could not be deaf to such 
eloquent ear-rings, and the great truths of 
Islam came home to her young bosom in 
the delicate folds of the cashmere; she was 
ready to abandon her faith. 

The sheik knew very well that his attempt 
to convert an infidel was unlawful, and that 
his proceedings would not bear investiga- 
tion, so he took care to pay a large sum to 
the Governor of Nablus in order to gain his 
connivance. 

At length Mariam quitted her home, and 
placed herself under the protection of the 
Mohammedan authorities. These men, 
however, refrained from delivering her into 
the arms of her lover, and kept her safe in 
a mosque until the fact of her real conver- 
sion (for this had been indignantly denied 
by her relatives) should be established. For 

i These are the names given by the Prophet to certain chap- 
ters of the Koran. 

364 



Chapter XXV ] 



EOTHEN 



two or three days the mother of the young 
convert was prevented from communicating 
with her child by various evasive contri- 
vances, but not, it would seem, by a flat re- 
fusal. At length it was announced that the 
young lady's profession of faith might be 
heard from her own lips. At an hour ap- 
pointed the friends of the sheik and rela- 
tives of the damsel met in the mosque. 
The young convert addressed her mother in 
a loud voice, and said, "God is God, and 
Mohammed is the Prophet of God; and 
thou, my mother, art an infidel feminine 
dog!" 

You would suppose that this declaration, 
so clearly enounced, and that, too, in a 
place where Mohammedanism is perhaps 
more supreme than in any other part of the 
empire, would have sufficed to confirm the 
pretensions of the lover. This, however, 
was not the case. The Greek priest of the 
place was despatched on a mission to the 
Governor of Jerusalem (Aboo Goosh), in 
order to complain against the proceedings 
of the sheik, and obtain a restitution of the 
bride. Meanwhile the Mohammedan au- 
thorities at Nablus were so conscious of 
having acted unlawfully in conspiring to 
disturb the faith of the beautiful infidel 
that they hesitated to take any further 
365 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXV 



steps, and the girl was still detained in the 
mosque. 

Thus matters stood when the Christians 
of the place came and sought to obtain my 
aid. 

I felt (with regret) that I had no personal 
interest in the matter, and I also thought 
that there was no pretense for my interfer- 
ing with the conflicting claims of the Chris- 
tian husband and the Mohammedan lover. 
I declined to take any step. 

My speaking of the husband, by the by, 
reminds me that he was extremely back- 
ward about the great work of recovering 
his youthful bride. The kinsmen of the 
girl (they felt themselves personally dis- 
graced by her conduct) were vehement and 
excited to a high pitch, but the Menelaus of 
Nablus was exceedingly calm and com- 
posed. 

The fact that it was no duty of mine to 
interfere in a matter of this kind was a very 
sufficient, and yet a very unsatisfactory, 
reason for my refusal of all assistance. 
Until you are placed in situations of this 
kind, you can hardly tell how painful it is to 
refrain from intermeddling in other people's 
affairs— to refrain from intermeddling when 
you feel that you can do so with happy 
effect, and can remove a load of distress by 
366 



Chapter XXV ] 



EOTHEN 



the use of a few small phrases. Upon this 
occasion, however, an expression fell from 
one of the girl's kinsmen which not only 
determined me to abstain from interfer- 
ence, but made me hope that all attempts 
to recover the proselyte would fail. This 
person, speaking with the most savage bit- 
terness, and with the cordial approval of all 
the other relatives, said that the girl ought 
to be beaten to death. I could not fail to 
see that if the poor child were ever restored 
to her family she would be treated with 
the most frightful barbarity; I heartily 
wished, therefore, that the Mussulmans 
might be firm, and preserve their young 
prize from any fate so dreadful as that of a 
return to her own relations. 

The next day the Greek priest returned 
from his mission to Aboo Goosh; but "the 
father of lies," it would seem, had been 
well plied with the gold of the enamoured 
sheik, and contrived to put off the prayers 
of the Christians by cunning feints. Now, 
therefore, a second and more numerous 
deputation than the first waited upon me, 
and implored my intervention with the Gov- 
ernor. I informed the assembled Chris- 
tians that since their last application I had 
carefully considered the matter. The re- 
ligious question, I thought, might be put 
367 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXV 



aside at once, for the excessive levity 
which the girl had displayed proved clearly 
that, in adopting Mohammedanism, she 
was not quitting any other faith; her mind 
must have been thoroughly blank upon re- 
ligious questions, and she was not, there- 
fore, to be treated as a Christian straying 
from the flock, but rather as a child with- 
out any religion at all— a child incapable of 
imagining any truer worshipers than those 
who would deck her with jewels and clothe 
her in cashmere shawls. 

So much for the religious part of the 
question. Well, then, in a merely temporal 
sense it appeared to me that (looking 
merely to the interests of the damsel, for I 
rather unjustly put poor Menelaus quite out 
of the question) the advantages were all on 
the side of the Mohammedan match. The 
sheik was in a higher station of life than 
the superseded husband, and had given the 
best possible proof of his ardent affection by 
the sacrifices made and the risks incurred 
for the sake of the beloved object. I there- 
fore stated fairly, to the horror and amaze- 
ment of all my hearers, that the sheik, in 
my view, was likely to make a capital hus- 
band, and that I entirely "approved of the 
match." 

I left Nablus under the impression that 

368 



Chapter XXV] 



EOTHEN 



Mariam would soon be delivered to her 
Mussulman lover. I afterwards found, 
however, that the result was very different. 
Dthemetri's religious zeal and hate had 
been so much excited by the account of 
these events, and by the grief and mortifi- 
cation of his coreligionists, that when he 
found me firmly determined to decline all 
interference in the matter, he secretly ap- 
pealed to the Governor in my name, and 
(using, I suppose, many violent threats, 
and telling, no doubt, good store of lies 
about my station and influence) extorted a 
promise that the proselyte should be re- 
stored to her relatives. I did not under- 
stand that the girl had been actually given 
up whilst I remained at Nablus, but Dthe- 
metri certainly did not desist from his in- 
stances until he had satisfied himself by 
some means or other (for mere words 
amounted to nothing) that the promise 
would be actually performed. It was not 
till I had quitted Syria, and when Dthemetri 
was no longer in my service, that this vil- 
lainous though well-motived trick of his 
came to my knowledge. Mysseri, who in- 
formed me of the step which had been 
taken, did not know it himself until some 
time after we had quitted Nablus, when 
Dthemetri exultingly confessed his success- 
24 369 



EOTHIN 



fill enterprise- I know not whether the 
engagement extorted from the Governor 
was ever complied with- I shudder to think 
of the fate which must have befallen poor 
Mariam if she fell into the hands of the 




CHAPTER 



XXVI 



The prophet Damoor. 




OR some hours I passed along the 



shores of the fair Lake of Galilee; 



then turning a little to the westward, 
I struck into a mountainous tract, and as 
I advanced thenceforward, the features of 
the country kept growing more and more 
bold. At length I drew near to the city of 
Saf ed. It sits proud as a fortress upon the 
summit of a craggy height; yet, because of 
its minarets and stately trees, the place 
looks happy and beautiful. It is one of the 
holy cities of the Talmud; and, according to 
this authority, the Messiah will reign there 
for forty years before he takes possession 
of Zion. The sanctity and historical im- 
portance thus attributed to the city by 
anticipation render it a favorite place of 
retirement for Israelites; of these it con- 
tains, they say, about four thousand, a 
number nearly balancing that of the Mo- 
hammedan inhabitants. I knew by my 



371 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXVI 



experience of Tabariyeh that a "holy city " 
was sure to have a population of vermin 
somewhat proportionate to the number of 
its Israelites, and I therefore caused my 
tent to be pitched upon a green spot of 
ground at a respectful distance from the 
walls of the town. 

When it had become quite dark (for there 
was no moon that night), I was informed 
that several Jews had secretly come from 
the city, in the hope of obtaining some 
help from me in circumstances of immi- 
nent danger. I was also informed that 
they claimed my aid upon the ground that 
some of their number were British sub- 
jects. It was arranged that the two prin- 
cipal men of the party should speak for the 
rest, and these were accordingly admitted 
into my tent. One of the two called him- 
self the British vice-consul, and he had 
with him his consular cap; but he frankly 
said that he could not have dared to as- 
sume this emblem of his dignity in the 
daytime, and that nothing but the ex- 
treme darkness of the night rendered it 
safe for him to put it on upon this occa- 
sion. The other of the spokesmen was a 
Jew of Gibraltar, a tolerably well-bred per- 
son, who spoke English very fluently. 
These men informed me that the Jews of 
372 



Chapter XXVI ] 



EOTHEN 



the place, though exceedingly wealthy, had 
lived peaceably and undisturbed in their 
retirement until the insurrection of 1834; 
but about the beginning of that year a 
highly religious Mussulman, called Mo- 
hammed Damoor, went forth into the mar- 
ket-place, crying with a loud voice, and 
prophesying that on the 15th of the fol- 
lowing June the true believers would rise 
up in just wrath against the Jews, and de- 
spoil them of their gold and their silver 
and their jewels. The earnestness of the 
prophet produced some impression at the 
time; but all went on as usual, until at 
last the 15th of June arrived. When that 
day dawned, the whole Mussulman popula- 
tion of the place assembled in the streets 
that they might see the result of the 
prophecy. Suddenly Mohammed Damoor 
rushed furious into the crowd, and the 
fierce shout of the prophet soon insured 
the fulfilment of his prophecy. Some of 
the Jews fled and some remained, but they 
who fled and they who remained alike and 
unresistingly left their property to the 
hands of the spoilers. The most odious of 
all outrages, that of searching the women 
for the base purpose of discovering such 
things as gold and silver concealed about 
their persons, was perpetrated without 
373 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXVI 



shame. The poor Jews were so stricken 
with terror that they submitted to their 
fate even where resistance would have 
been easy. In several instances a young 
Mussulman boy, not more than ten or 
twelve years of age, walked straight into 
the house of a Jew, and stripped him of 
his property before his face, and in the 
presence of his whole family. 1 When the 
insurrection was put down, some of the 
Mussulmans (most probably those who had 
got no spoil wherewith they might buy 
immunity) were punished, but the greater 
part of them escaped; none of the booty 
was restored, and the pecuniary redress 
which the Pasha had undertaken to enforce 
for them had been hitherto so carefully de- 
layed that the hope of ever obtaining it had 
grown very faint. A new Governor had been 
appointed to the command of the place, 
with stringent orders to ascertain the real 
extent of the losses, to discover the spoil- 
ers, and to compel immediate restitution. 
It was found that, notwithstanding the 
urgency of his instructions, the Governor 
did not push on the affair with any percep- 
tible vigor; the Jews complained, and either 
by the protection of the British consul at 

i It was after the interview which I am talking of, and not 
from the Jews themselves, that I learned this fact. 

374 



Chapter XXVI ] 



EOTHEN 



Damascus, or by some other means, had in- 
fluence enough to induce the appointment 
of a special commissioner— they called him 
"the Modeer "—whose duty it was to watch 
for and prevent anything like connivance 
on the part of the Governor, and to push on 
the investigation with vigor and imparti- 
ality. 

Such were the instructions with which, 
some few weeks since, the Modeer came 
charged; the result was that the investiga- 
tion had made no practical advance, and 
that the Modeer, as well as the Governor, 
was living upon terms of affectionate friend- 
ship with Mohammed Damoor and the rest 
of the principal spoilers. 

Thus stood the chance of redress for the 
past. But the cause of the agonizing ex- 
citement under which the Jews of the place 
now labored was recent and justly alarming: 
Mohammed Damoor had again gone forth 
into the market-place, and lifted up his 
voice, and prophesied a second spoliation of 
the Israelites. This was a grave matter; the 
words of such a practical and clear-sighted 
prophet as Mohammed Damoor were not to 
be despised. I fear I must have smiled 
visibly, for I was greatly amused, and even, 
I think, gratified, at the account of this sec- 
ond prophecy. Nevertheless, my heart 
375 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXVI 



warmed towards the poor oppressed Israel- 
ites; and I was flattered, too, in the point of 
my national vanity, at the notion of the 
far-reaching link by which a Jew in Syria, 
because he had been born on the rock of Gi- 
braltar, was able to claim me as his fellow- 
countryman. If I hesitated at all between 
the "impropriety" of interfering in a mat- 
ter which was no business of mine, and the 
" infernal shame " of refusing my aid at such 
a conjuncture, I soon came to a very un- 
gentlemanly decision— namely, that I would 
be guilty of the "impropriety," and not of 
the "infernal shame." It seemed to me 
that the immediate arrest of Mohammed 
Damoor was the one thing needful to the 
safety of the Jews, and I felt sure (for rea- 
sons which I have already mentioned in 
speaking of the Nablus affair) that I should 
be able to obtain this result by making a 
formal application to the Governor. I told 
my applicants that I would take this step 
on the following morning. They were very 
grateful, and were for a moment much 
pleased at the prospect of safety thus seem- 
ingly opened to them; but the deliberation 
of a minute entirely altered their views, and 
filled them with new terror: they declared 
that any attempt or pretended attempt on 
the part of the Governor to arrest Mo- 
376 



Chapter XXVI ] 



EOTHEN 



hammed Damoor would certainly produce 
an immediate movement of the whole Mus- 
sulman population, and a consequent mas- 
sacre and robbery of the Israelites. My 
visitors went out, and remained I know not 
how long consulting with their brethren, 
but all at last agreed that their present 
perilous and painful position was better 
than a certain and immediate attack, and 
that if Mohammed Damoor was seized their 
second estate would be worse than their 
first. I myself did not think that this would 
be the case, but I could not, of course, force 
my aid upon the people against their will; 
and, moreover, the day fixed for the fulfil- 
ment of this second prophecy was not very 
close at hand; a little delay, therefore, in 
providing against the impending danger 
would not necessarily be fatal. The men 
now confessed that although they had come 
with so much mystery and (as they thought) 
at so great risk to ask my assistance, they 
were unable to suggest any mode in which 
I could aid them, except, indeed, by men- 
tioning their grievances to the consul-gen- 
eral at Damascus. This I promised to do, 
and this I did. 

My visitors were very thankful to me for 
my readiness to intermeddle in their affairs, 
and the grateful wives of the principal Jews 
377 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXVI 



sent to me many compliments, with choice 
wines and elaborate sweetmeats. 

The course of my travels soon drew me 
so far from Safed that I never heard how 
the dreadful day passed off which had been 
fixed for the accomplishment of the second 
prophecy. If the predicted spoliation was 
prevented, poor Mohammed Damoor must 
have been forced, I suppose, to say that he 
had prophesied in a metaphorical sense. 
This would be a sad falling off from the 
brilliant and substantial success of the first 
experiment. 



378 



CHAPTER 
XXVII 



Damascus, 



OR a part of two days I wound under 



the base of the snow-crowned Djibel 



X el Sheik, and then entered upon a vast 
and desolate plain rarely pierced at intervals 
by some sort of withered stem. The earth 
in its length and its breadth, and all the deep 
universe of the sky, was steeped in light 
and heat. On I rode through the fire, but 
long before evening came there were strain- 
ing eyes that saw, and joyful voices that 
announced, the sight of Shaum Shereef — 
the "Holy," the "Blessed"— Damascus. 

But that which at last I reached with my 
longing eyes was not a speck in the horizon, 
gradually expanding to a group of roofs and 
walls, but a long, low line of blackest green, 
that ran right across in the distance from 
east to west. And this, as I approached, 
grew deeper— grew wavy in its outline; soon 
forest-trees shot up before my eyes, and 
robed their broad shoulders so freshly 




379 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXVII 



that all the throngs of olives, as they rose 
into view, looked sad in their proper dim- 
ness. There were even now no houses to 
see, but minarets peered out from the midst 
of shade into the glowing sky, and, kindling, 
touched the sun. There seemed to be here 
no mere city, but rather a province, wide 
and rich, that bounded the torrid waste. 

Until about a year or two years before the 
time of my going there, Damascus had kept 
up so much of the old bigot zeal against 
Christians, or rather against Europeans, that 
no one dressed as a Frank could have dared 
to show himself in the streets; but the firm- 
ness and temper of Mr. Farren, who hoisted 
his flag in the city as consul-general for the 
district, had soon put an end to all intoler- 
ance of Englishmen. Damascus was safer 
than Oxford. 1 When I entered the city, in 
my usual dress, there was but one poor fel- 
low that wagged his tongue, and him, in 
the open streets, Dthemetri horsewhipped. 

1 An enterprising American traveler, Mr. Everett, lately con- 
ceived the bold project of penetrating to the University of 
Oxford, and this notwithstanding that he had been in his in- 
fancy (they being very young, those Americans) a Unitarian 
preacher. Having a notion, it seems, that the ambassadorial 
character would protect him from insult, he adopted the 
stratagem of procuring credentials from his Government 
as minister plenipotentiary at the court of her Britannic 
Majesty; he also wore the exact costume of a Trinitarian. 
But all his contrivances were vain : his infantine sermons 
were strictly remembered against him ; the enterprise failed. 



380 



Chapter XXVII ] 



EOTHEN 



During my stay I went wherever I chose, 
and attended the public baths without mo- 
lestation. Indeed, my relations with the 
pleasanter portion of the Mohammedan 
population were upon a much better footing 
here than at most other places. 

In the principal streets of Damascus there 
is a path for foot-passengers raised a foot 
or two above the bridle-road. Until the 
arrival of the British consul-general none 
but a Mussulman had been allowed to walk 
upon the upper way; Mr. Farren would not, 
of course, suffer that the humiliation of any 
such exclusion should be submitted to by an 
Englishman, and I always walked upon the 
raised path as free and unmolested as if I 
had been in Pall Mall. The old usage was, 
however, maintained with as much strict- 
ness as ever against the Christian Rayas and 
Jews: not one of these could have set his foot 
upon the privileged path without endanger- 
ing his life. 

I was walking one day, I remember, along 
the raised path, " the path of the Faithful," 
when a Christian Raya from the bridle-road 
below saluted me with such earnestness, 
and craved so anxiously to speak and be 
spoken to, that he soon brought me to a 
halt. He had nothing to tell, except only 
the glory and exultation with which he 
381 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXVII 



saw a fellow-Christian stand level with the 
imperious Mussulmans. Perhaps he had 
been absent from the place for some time, 
for otherwise I hardly know how it could 
have happened that my exaltation was 
the first instance he had seen. His joy 
was great; so strong and strenuous was 
England (Lord Palmer ston reigned in 
those days) that it was a pride and delight 
for a Syrian Christian to look up and say 
that the Englishman's faith was his, too. 
If I was vexed at all that I could not give 
the man a lift and shake hands with him on 
level ground, there was no alloy in his plea- 
sure. He followed me on, not looking to his 
own path, but keeping his eyes on me; he 
saw, as he thought and said (for he came 
with me on to my quarters), the period of 
the Mohammedan's absolute ascendancy— 
the beginning of the Christian's. He had 
so closely associated the insulting privilege 
of the path with actual dominion that see- 
ing it now in one instance abandoned he 
looked for the quick coming of European 
troops. His lips only whispered, and that 
tremulously, but his flashing eyes spoke out 
their triumph more fiercely: "I, too, am a 
Christian. My foes are the foes of the Eng- 
lish. We are all one people, and Christ is 
our King." 

382 



Chapter XXVII ] 



EOTHEN 



If I poorly deserved, yet I liked this claim 
of brotherhood. Not all the warnings I 
heard against their rascality could hinder 
me from feeling kindly towards my fellow- 
Christians in the East. English travelers 
(from a habit perhaps of depreciating sec- 
tarians in their own country) are apt to look 
down upon the Oriental Christians as being 
"dissenters" from the established religion 
of a Mohammedan empire. I never did thus. 
By a natural perversity of disposition which 
nursemaids call contrariness, I felt the 
more strongly for my creed when I saw it 
despised among them. I quite tolerated 
the Christianity of Mohammedan countries, 
notwithstanding its humble aspect, and the 
damaged character of its followers. I went 
further, and extended some sympathy to- 
wards those who, with all the claims of 
superior intellect, learning, and industry, 
were kept down under the heel of the Mus- 
sulmans by reason of their having our faith. 
I heard, as I fancied, the faint echo of an 
old crusader's conscience, that whispered 
and said, "Common cause!" The impulse 
was, as you may suppose, much too feeble 
to bring me into trouble; it merely influenced 
my actions in a way thoroughly character- 
istic of this poor sluggish century— that is, 
by making me speak almost as civilly to 
383 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XX VIE 



the followers of Christ as I did to their 
Mohammedan foes, 

This "'holy''' Damascus, this "'earthly 
Paradise" of the Prophet, so fair to the 
eyes that he dared not trust himself to tarry 
in her blissful shades, she is a city of hid- 
den palaces, of copses, and gardens, and 
fountains, and bubbling streams. The juice 
of her life is the gushing and ice-cold tor- 
rent that tumbles from the snowy sides of 
Anti-Lebanon. Close along on the river's 
edge, through seven sweet miles of rustling 
boughs and deepest shade, the city spreads 
out her whole length. As a man falls flat, 
face forward on the brook, that he may 
drink, and drink again, so Damascus, thirst- 
ing forever, lies down with her lips to the 
stream, and clings to its rushing waters. 

The chief places of public amusement, or 
rather of public relaxation, are the baths 
and the great cafe. This last is frequented 
at night by most of the wealthy men of the 
city, and by many of the humbler sort. It 
consists of a number of sheds, very simply 
framed and built in a labyrinth of running 
streams— streams so broken and headlong 
in their course that they foam and roar on 
every side. The place is lit up in the sim- 
plest manner by numbers of small pale 
lamps, strung upon loose cords, and so sus- 
3&4 



Chapter XXVII ] 



EOTHEN 



pended from branch to branch that the 
light, though it looks so quiet amongst the 
darkening foliage, yet leaps and brightly 
flashes, as it falls upon the troubled waters. 
All around, and chiefly upon the very edge 
of the torrents, groups of people are tran- 
quilly seated. They drink coffee, and inhale 
the cold fumes of the narghile; they talk 
rather gently the one to the other, or else 
are silent. A father will sometimes have 
two or three of his boys around him, but the 
joyousness of an Oriental child is all of the 
sober sort, and never disturbs the reigning 
calm of the land. 

It has been generally understood, I be- 
lieve, that the houses of Damascus are more 
sumptuous than those of any other city in 
the East. Some of these— said to be the 
most magnificent in the place— I had an 
opportunity of seeing. 

Every rich man's house stands detached 
from its neighbors, at the side of a garden, 
and it is from this cause, no doubt, that the 
city (severely menaced by prophecy) has 
hitherto escaped destruction. You know 
some parts of Spain, but you have never, I 
think, been in Andalusia; if you had, I could 
easily show you the interior of a Damascene 
house by referring you to the Alhambra 
or Alcazar of Seville. The lofty rooms are 
25 385 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXVII 



adorned with a rich inlaying of many colors 
and illuminated writing on the walls. The 
floors are of marble. One side of any room 
intended for noonday retirement is generally 
laid open to a quadrangle, and in the center 
of this is the dancing jet of a fountain. 
There is no furniture that can interfere with 
the cool, palace-like emptiness of the apart- 
ments. A divan (that is, a low and doubly 
broad sofa) runs round the three walled 
sides of the room; a few Persian carpets 
(they ought to be called Persian rugs, for 
that is the word which indicates their shape 
and dimension) are sometimes thrown about 
near the divan; they are placed without 
order, the one partly lapping over the other 
—and thus disposed, they give to the room 
an appearance of uncaring luxury. Except 
these, there is nothing to obstruct the wel- 
come air; and the whole of the marble floor, 
from one divan to the other, and from the 
head of the chamber across to the murmur- 
ing fountain, is thoroughly open and free. 

So simple as this is Asiatic luxury! The 
Oriental is not a contriving animal— there 
is nothing intricate in his magnificence. 
The impossibility of handing down property 
from father to son for any long period con- 
secutively seems to prevent the existence 
of those traditions by which, with us, the 
386 



Chapter XXVII ] 



EOTHEN 



refined modes of applying wealth are made 
known to its inheritors. We know that in 
England a newly made rich man cannot, by 
taking thought and spending money, obtain 
even the same-looking furniture as a gen- 
tleman. The complicated character of an 
English establishment allows room for 
subtle distinctions between that which is 
comme il faut and that which is not. All 
such refinements are unknown in the East; 
the Pasha and the peasant have the same 
tastes. The broad cold marble floor, the 
simple couch, the air freshly waving 
through a shady chamber, a verse of the 
Koran emblazoned on the wall, the sight 
and the sound of falling water, the cold, 
fragrant smoke of the narghile, and a small 
collection of wives and children in the 
inner apartments— all these, the utmost 
enjoyments of the grandee, are yet such as 
to be appreciable by the humblest Mussul- 
man in the empire. 

But its gardens are the delight— the de- 
light and the pride — of Damascus. They are 
not the formal parterres which you might 
expect from the Oriental taste; rather, they 
bring back to your mind the memory of 
some dark old shrubbery in our northern 
isle that has been charmingly ww-"kept 
up 99 for many and many a day. When you 
387 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXVII 



see a rich wilderness of wood in decent 
England, it is like enough that you see it 
with some soft regrets. The puzzled old 
woman at the lodge can give small account 
of "the family." She thinks it is "Italy " 
that has made the whole circle of her 
world so gloomy and sad. You avoid the 
house in lively dread of a lone housekeeper; 
but you make your way on by the stables. 
You remember that gable, with all its 
neatly nailed trophies of fitches and hawks 
and owls now slowly falling to pieces; you 
remember that stable, and that: but the 
doors are all fastened that used to be stand- 
ing ajar; the paint of things painted is 
blistered and cracked; grass grows in the 
yard. Just there, in October mornings, 
the keeper would wait with the dogs and 
the guns : no keeper now. You hurry away, 
and gain the small wicket that used to 
open to the touch of a lightsome hand; it 
is fastened with a padlock (the only new- 
looking thing), and is stained with thick 
green damp; you climb it, and bury your- 
self in the deep shade, and strive but lazily 
with the tangling briers, and stop for long 
minutes to judge and determine whether 
you will creep beneath the long boughs 
and make them your archway, or whether 
perhaps you will lift your heel and tread 
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Chapter XXVII ] 



EOTHEN 



them down underfoot. Long doubt, and 
scarcely to be ended, till you wake from 
the memory of those days when the path 
was clear, and chase that phantom of a 
muslin sleeve that once weighed warm upon 
your arm. 

Wild as that, the nighest woodland of a 
deserted home in England, but without its 
sweet sadness, is the sumptuous garden of 
Damascus. Forest-trees, tall and stately 
enough, if you could see their lofty crests, 
yet lead a tussling life of it below, with 
their branches struggling against strong 
numbers of bushes and wilful shrubs. The 
shade upon the earth is black as night. 
High, high above your head, and on every 
side all down to the ground, the thicket is 
hemmed in and choked up by the inter- 
lacing boughs that droop with the weight 
of roses, and load the slow air with their 
damask breath. 1 There are no other flowers. 
Here and there, there are patches of ground 
made clear from the cover, and these are 
either carelessly planted with some com- 
mon and useful vegetable, or else are left 
free to the wayward ways of nature, and 
bear rank weeds, moist-looking and cool to 
your eyes, and freshening the sense with 

1 The rose-trees which I saw were all of the kind we call 
" damask " ; they grow to an immense height and size. 



389 



EOTHEN 



their earthy and bitter fragrance. There 
is a lane opened through the thicket, so 
broad in some places that you can pass 
along side by side, in some so narrow (the 
shrubs are forever encroaching) that you 
ought, if you can, to go on the first, and 
hold back the bough of the rose-tree. And 
through the sweet wilderness a loud rush- 
ing stream flows tumbling along, till it is 
halted at last in the lowest corner of the 
garden, and there tossed up in a fountain 
by the side of the simple alcove. This is 
all. 

Never for an instant will the people of 
Damascus attempt to separate the idea of 
bliss from these wild gardens and rushing 
waters. Even where your best affections 
are concerned, and you— wise preachers ab- 
stain and turn aside when they come near 
the mysteries of the happy state, and we 
(wise preachers, too), we will hush our 
voices, and never reveal to finite beings 
the joys of the "earthly Paradise." 



390 



CHAPTER 



XXVIII 



Pass of the Lebanon. 




[HE ruins of Baalbec!" Shall I scat- 



ter the vague solemn thoughts and 



JL all the airy fantasies which gather 
together when once those words are 
spoken, that I may give you, instead, tall 
columns, and measurements true, and 
phrases built with ink? No, no; the glori- 
ous sounds shall still float on as of yore, 
and still hold fast upon your brain with 
their own dim and infinite meaning. 

The pass by which I crossed the Lebanon 
is like, I think, in its features, to that of 
the Furka in the Bernese Oberland. For 
a great part of the way I toiled rather 
painfully through the dazzling snow, but 
the labor of ascending added to the excite- 
ment with which I looked for the summit 
of the pass. The time came. There was 
a minute, and I saw nothing but the steep 
white shoulder of the mountain; there was 
another minute, and that the next, which 



391 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXVIII 



showed me a nether heaven of fleecy clouds, 
—clouds floating along far down in the air 
beneath me,— and showed me, beyond, the 
breadth of all Syria west of the Lebanon. 
But chiefly I clung with my eyes to the dim, 
steadfast line of the sea which closed my 
utmost view. I had grown well used, of 
late, to the people and the scenes of forlorn 
Asia— well used to tombs and ruins, to 
silent cities and deserted plains, to tran- 
quil men, and women sadly veiled; and 
now that I saw the even plain of the sea, I 
leaped with an easy leap to its yonder 
shores, and saw all the kingdoms of the 
West in that fair path that could lead me 
from out of this silent land straight on into 
shrill Marseilles, or round by the pillars of 
Hercules, to the crash and roar of London. 
My place upon this dividing barrier was as 
a man's puzzling station in eternity, be- 
tween the birthless past and the future 
that has no end. Behind me I left an old 
and decrepit world— religions dead and 
dying, calm tyrannies expiring in silence, 
women hushed and swathed and turned 
into waxen dolls, love flown, and in its 
stead mere royal and " Paradise " pleasures. 
Before me there waited glad bustle and 
strife— love itself an emulous game, re- 
ligion a cause and a controversy, well 
392 



Chapter XXVIII ] 



EOTHEN 



smitten and well defended, men governed 
by reasons and suasion of speech, wheels 
going, steam buzzing, a mortal race, and 
a slashing pace, and the devil taking the 
hindmost— taking me, by Jove! (for that 
was my inner care) if I lingered too long 
upon the difficult pass that leads from 
thought to action. 

I descended, and went towards the West. 

The group of cedars remaining on this 
part of the Lebanon is held sacred by the 
Greek Church, on account of a prevailing 
notion that the trees were standing at the 
time when the Temple of Jerusalem was 
built. They occupy three or four acres on 
the mountain's side, and many of them are 
gnarled in a way that implies great age; 
but, except these signs, I saw nothing in 
their appearance or conduct that tended to 
prove them contemporaries of the cedars 
employed in Solomon's Temple. The final 
cause to which these aged survivors owed 
their preservation was explained to me in 
the evening by a glorious old fellow (a 
Christian chief) who made me welcome in 
the valley of Eden. In ancient times the 
whole range of the Lebanon had been 
covered with cedars; and as the fertile 
plains beneath became more and more in- 
fested by Government officers and tyrants 
393 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXVIII 



of high and low estate, the people by de- 
grees abandoned them, and nocked to the 
rugged mountains for protection, well 
knowing that the trouble of a walk up- 
hill would seriously obstruct their weak 
and lazy oppressors. The cedar forests 
gradually shrank under the ax of the en- 
croaching multitudes, and seemed at last 
to be on the point of disappearing entirely, 
when an aged chief who ruled in this dis- 
trict, and who had witnessed the great 
change effected even in his own lifetime, 
chose to say that some sign or memorial 
should be left of the vast woods with 
which the mountains had formerly been 
clad, and commanded accordingly that this 
group of trees (a group probably situated 
at the highest point to which the forest 
had reached) should remain untouched. 
The chief, it seems, was not moved by the 
notion I have mentioned as prevailing in 
the Greek Church, but rather by some 
sentiment of veneration for a great natu- 
ral feature— a sentiment akin, perhaps, 
to that old and earth-born religion which 
made men bow down to creation before 
they had yet learned to know and worship 
the Creator. 

The chief of the valley in which I passed 
the night was a man of large possessions, 
394 



Chapter XXVIII ] 



EOTHEN 



and he entertained me very sumptuously. 
He was highly intelligent, and had had the 
sagacity to foresee that Europe would in- 
tervene authoritatively in the affairs of 
Syria. Bearing this idea in mind, and with 
a view to give his son an advantageous start 
in the ambitious career for which he was 
destined, he had hired for him a teacher 
of Italian, the only accessible European 
tongue. The tutor, however (a native of 
Syria), either did not know, or did not 
choose to teach, the European form of ad- 
dress, but contented himself with instruct- 
ing his pupil in the mere language of Italy. 
This circumstance gave me an opportunity 
(the only one I ever had, or was likely to 
have 1 ) of hearing Oriental courtesies ex- 
pressed in a European tongue. The boy 
was about twelve or thirteen years old, and 
having the power of speaking to me with- 
out the aid of an interpreter, he took a 
prominent part in the hospitable duties of 
the day. He did the honors of the house 
with untiring assiduity, and with a kind of 
gracefulness which by mere description can 
scarcely be made intelligible to those who 
are unacquainted with the manners of the 
Asiatics. The boy's address resembled a 

i A dragoman never interprets in terms the courteous lan- 
guage of the East. 

395 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXVIII 



little that of a highly polished and insinu- 
ating Roman Catholic priest, but had more 
of girlish gentleness. It was strange to 
hear him gravely and slowly enunciating 
the common and extravagant compliments 
of the East in good Italian, and in soft, per- 
suasive tones. I recollect that I was par- 
ticularly amused at the gracious obstinacy 
with which he maintained that the house 
and the surrounding estates belonged, not 
to his father, but to me. To say this once 
was only to use the common form of speech, 
signifying no more than our sweet word 
"welcome"; but the amusing part of the 
matter was that whenever, in the course 
of conversation, I happened to speak of 
his father's mansion or the surrounding 
domain, the boy invariably interfered to 
correct my pretended mistake, and to as- 
sure me once again, with a gentle decisive- 
ness of manner, that the whole property 
was really and exclusively mine, and that 
his father had not the most distant pre- 
tensions to its ownership. 

I received from my host some good in- 
formation respecting the people of the 
mountains, and their power of resisting 
Mehemet Ali. The chief gave me very 
plainly to understand that the moun- 
taineers, being dependent upon others for 
396 



Chapter XXVIII ] 



EOTHEN 



bread and gunpowder (the two great neces- 
saries of martial life), could not long hold 
out against a power occupying the plains 
and commanding the sea; hut he also as- 
sured me, and that very significantly, that 
if this source of weakness were provided 
against, the mountaineers were to be depended 
upon. He told me that in ten or fifteen 
days the chiefs could bring together some 
fifty thousand fighting men. 



397 



CHAPTER 
XXIX 



Surprise of Satalieh. 



WHILST I was remaining upon the 
coast of Syria I had the good 
fortune to become acquainted 
with the Russian Sataliefsky, 1 a general 
officer who in his youth had fought and 
bled at Borodino, but was now better known 
among diplomats by the important trust 
committed to him at a period highly critical 
for the affairs of eastern Europe. I must 
not tell you his family name; my men- 
tion of his title can do him no harm, for it 
is I, and I only, who have conferred it, in 
consideration of the military and diplomatic 
services performed under my own eyes. 

The general, as well as I, was bound for 
Smyrna, and we agreed to sail together in 
an Ionian brigantine. We did not charter 
the vessel, but we made our arrangement 
with the captain upon such terms that we 
could be put ashore upon any part of the 

1 A title signifying Transcender or Conqueror of Satalieh. 

398 



Chapter XXIX] 



EOTHEN 



coast that we might choose. We sailed, 
and day after day the vessel lay dawdling 
on the sea, with calms and feeble breezes 
for her portion. I myself was well repaid 
for the painful restlessness occasioned by 
slow weather, because I gained from my 
companion a little of that vast fund of in- 
teresting knowledge with which he was 
stored— knowledge a thousand times the 
more highly to be prized, since it was not 
of the sort that is to be gathered from 
books, but only from the lips of those who 
have acted a part in the world. 

When, after nine days of sailing, or try- 
ing to sail, we found ourselves still hang- 
ing by the mainland to the north of the 
Isle of Cyprus, we determined to disembark 
at Satalieh, and to go on thence by land. A 
light breeze favored our purpose, and it 
was with great delight that we neared the 
fragrant land, and saw our anchor go down 
in the bay of Satalieh within two or three 
hundred yards of the shore. 

The town of Satalieh 1 is the chief place 
of the pashalic in which it is situate, and 
its citadel is the residence of the Pasha. 
We had scarcely dropped our anchor when 
a boat from the shore came alongside with 

i Spelled "Attalia " and sometimes "Adalia " in English books 
and maps. 



399 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXIX 



officers on board. These men announced 
that strict orders had been received for 
maintaining a quarantine of three weeks 
against all vessels coming from Syria, and 
they directed, accordingly, that no one from 
the vessel should disembark. In reply we 
sent a message to the Pasha, setting forth 
the rank and titles of the general, and re- 
quiring permission to go ashore. After a 
while the boat came again alongside, and 
the officers, declaring that the orders re- 
ceived from Constantinople were impera- 
tive and unexceptional, formally enjoined 
us, in the name of the Pasha, to abstain 
from any attempt to land. 

I had been hitherto much less impatient 
of our slow voyage than my gallant friend; 
but this opposition made the smooth sea 
seem to me like a prison from which I 
must and would break out. I had an un- 
bounded faith in the feebleness of Asiatic 
potentates, and I proposed that we should 
set the Pasha at defiance. The general 
had been worked up to a state of most 
painful agitation by the idea of being driven 
from the shore which smiled so pleasantly 
before his eyes, and he adopted my sug- 
gestion with rapture. 

We determined to land. 

To approach the sweet shore after a te- 
400 



Chapter XXIX ] 



EOTHEN 



dious voyage, and then to be suddenly and 
unexpectedly prohibited from landing, this 
is so maddening to the temper that no one 
who had ever experienced the trial would 
say that even the most violent impatience 
of such restraint is wholly inexcusable. 
I am not going to pretend, however, 
that the course we chose to adopt on the 
occasion can be perfectly justified. The 
impropriety of a traveler's setting at 
naught the regulations of a foreign state 
is clear enough, and the bad taste of com- 
passing such a purpose by mere gasconad- 
ing is still more glaringly plain. I knew 
perfectly well that if the Pasha under- 
stood his duty, and had energy enough to 
perform it, he would order out a file of 
soldiers the moment we landed, and cause 
us both to be shot upon the beach, with- 
out allowing more contact than might be 
absolutely necessary for the purpose of 
making us stand fire; but I also firmly be- 
lieved that the Pasha would not see the 
befitting line of conduct nearly so well as 
I did, and that even if he did know his 
duty, he would hardly succeed in finding 
resolution enough to perform it. 

We ordered the boat to be got in readi- 
ness, and the officers on shore, seeing these 
preparations, gathered together a number 
26 401 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXIX 



of guards. These assembled upon the 
sands; we saw that great excitement pre- 
vailed, and that messengers were continu- 
ally going to and fro between the shore 
and the citadel. 

Our captain, out of compliment to his 
Excellency, had provided the vessel with a 
Russian war flag, and during our voyage he 
had been in the habit of hoisting it alter- 
nately with the Union Jack. We agreed 
that we would attempt our disembarka- 
tion under this the Russian standard. I 
was glad to have it so resolved, for I 
should have been sorry to engage the 
honored flag of England in an affair like 
this. The Russian ensign was therefore 
committed to one of the sailors, and the 
man honored with this charge took his 
station at the stern of the boat. We gave 
particular instructions to the captain of 
the brigantine, and when all was ready, 
the general and I, with our respective 
servants, got into the boat, and were 
slowly rowed towards the shore. The 
guards gathered together at the point for 
which we were making, but when they 
saw that our boat went on without alter- 
ing her course, they ceased to stand very 
still. None of them ran away, or even 
shrank back, but they looked as if the 
402 



Chapter XXIX ] 



EOTHEN 



pack were being shuffled, every man seem- 
ing desirous to change places with his 
neighbor. They were still at their post, 
however, when our oars went in and the 
bow of our boat ran up— well up upon the 
beach. 

The general was lame by an honorable 
wound received at Borodino, and could not, 
without some help, get out of the boat; I, 
therefore, landed the first. My instructions 
to the captain were attended to with the 
most perfect accuracy, for scarcely had my 
foot indented the sand when the four six- 
pounders of the brigantine quite gravely 
rolled out their brute thunder. Precisely 
as I had expected, the guards, and all the 
people who had gathered about them, gave 
way under the shock produced by the mere 
sound of guns, and *we were all allowed to 
disembark without the least molestation. 

We immediately formed a little column, 
or rather, as I should have called it, a pro- 
cession, for we had no fighting aptitude in 
us, and were only trying, as it were, how far 
we could go in frightening full-grown chil- 
dren. First marched the sailor with the 
Russian flag of war bravely flying in the 
breeze; then came the general and I; then 
our servants; and lastly, if I rightly recol- 
lect, two more of the brigantine's crew. Our 
403 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXIX 



flag-bearer so exulted in his honorable office, 
and bore the colors aloft with so much of 
pomp and dignity, that I found it exceed- 
ingly hard to keep a grave countenance. 
We advanced towards the castle, but the 
people had now had time to recover from 
the effect of the six-pounders (only, of 
course, loaded with powder), and they could 
not help seeing, not only the numerical 
weakness of our party, but the very slight 
amount of wealth and resource which it 
seemed to imply. They began to hang round 
us more closely; and just as this reaction 
was beginning, the general (he was per- 
fectly unacquainted with the Asiatic char- 
acter) thoughtlessly turned round in order 
to speak to one of the servants. The effect 
of this slight move was magical: the people 
thought we were going to give way, and 
instantly closed round us. In two words, 
and with one touch, I showed my comrade 
the danger he was running, and in the next 
instant we were both advancing more pom- 
pously than ever. Some minutes after- 
wards there was a second appearance of 
reaction, followed again by wavering and 
indecision on the part of the Pasha's peo- 
ple; but at length it seemed to be under- 
stood that we should go unmolested into 
the audience-hall. 

404 



Chapter XXIX ] 



EOTHEN 



Constant communication had been going 
on between the receding crowd and the 
Pasha, and so, when we reached the gates 
of the citadel, we saw that preparations 
were made for giving us an awe-striking 
reception. Parting at once from the sailors 
and our servants, the general and I were 
conducted into the audience-hall; and there, 
at least, I suppose the Pasha hoped that he 
would confound us by his greatness. The 
hall was nothing more than a large white- 
washed room. Oriental potentates have a 
pride in that sort of simplicity when they 
can contrast it with the exhibition of power; 
and this the Pasha was able to do, for the 
lower end of the hall was filled with his offi- 
cers. These men (in number, as I thought, 
about fifty or sixty) were all handsomely, 
though plainly, dressed in the military 
frock-coats of Europe; they stood in mass, 
and so as to present a hollow, semicircular 
front towards the end of the hall at which 
the Pasha sat. They opened a narrow lane 
for us when we entered, and as soon as we 
had passed they again closed up their 
ranks. An attempt was made to induce 
us to remain at a respectful distance from 
his Mightiness. To have yielded in this 
point would have been fatal to our suc- 
cess—perhaps to our lives; but the general 
405 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXIX 



and I had already determined upon the 
place which we should take, and we rudely 
pushed on towards the upper end of the 
hall. 

Upon the divan, and close up against the 
right-hand corner of the room, there sat 
the Pasha— his limbs gathered in, the whole 
creature coiled up like an adder. His 
cheeks were deadly pale, and his lips per- 
haps had turned white, for without moving 
a muscle the man impressed me with an 
immense idea of the wrath within him. He 
kept his eyes inexorably fixed as if upon 
vacancy, and with the look of a man ac- 
customed to refuse the prayers of those 
who sue for life. We soon discomposed 
him, however, from this studied fixity of 
feature, for we marched straight up to the 
divan, and sat down, the Russian close to 
the Pasha, and I by the side of the Russian. 
This act astonished the attendants, and 
plainly disconcerted the Pasha; he could no 
longer maintain the glassy stillness of his 
eyes, and evidently became much agitated. 
At the feet of the satrap there stood a 
trembling Italian; this man was a sort of 
medico in the potentate's service, and now, 
in the absence of our attendants, he was to 
act as an interpreter. The Pasha caused 
him to tell us that we had openly defied his 
406 



Chapter XXIX ] 



EOTHEN 



authority, and had forced our way on shore 
in the teeth of his officers. 

Up to this time I had been the planner of 
the enterprise, but now that the moment 
had come when all would depend upon able 
and earnest speechifying, I felt at once the 
immense superiority of my gallant friend, 
and gladly left to him the whole conduct of 
this discussion. Indeed, he had vast advan- 
tages over me, not only by his superior com- 
mand of language, and his far more spirited 
style of address, but also in his conscious- 
ness of a good cause; for, whilst I felt my- 
self completely in the wrong, his Excellency 
had really worked himself up to believe that 
the Pasha's refusal to permit our landing 
was a gross outrage and insult. Therefore, 
without deigning to defend our conduct, he 
at once commenced a spirited attack upon 
the Pasha. The poor Italian doctor trans- 
lated one or two sentences to the Pasha, 
but he evidently mitigated their import. 
The Russian, growing warm, insisted upon 
his attack with redoubled energy and spirit; 
but the medico, instead of translating, began 
to shake violently with terror, and at last 
he came out with his non ardisco, and 
fairly confessed that he dared not interpret 
fierce words to his master. 

Now, then, at a time when everything 
407 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXIX 



seemed to depend upon the effect of speech, 
we were left without an interpreter. 

But this very circumstance, though at 
first it appeared so unfavorable, turned out 
to be advantageous. The general, finding 
that he could not have his words trans- 
lated, ceased to speak in Italian, and re- 
curred to his accustomed French; he became 
eloquent. No one present, except myself, 
understood one syllable of what he was say- 
ing; but he had drawn forth his passport, 
and the energy and violence with which, as 
he spoke, he pointed to the graven Eagle of 
all the Russias, began to make an impres- 
sion. The Pasha saw at his side a man, not 
only free from every the least pang of fear, 
but raging, as it seemed, with just indigna- 
tion, and thenceforward he plainly began to 
think that, in some way or other (he could 
not tell how), he must certainly have been 
in the wrong. In a little time he was so 
much shaken that the Italian ventured to 
resume his interpretation, and my comrade 
had again the opportunity of pressing his 
attack upon the Pasha. His argument, if I 
rightly recollect its import, was to this 
effect: "If the vilest Jews were to come into 
the harbor, you would but forbid them to 
land, and force them to perform quarantine; 
yet this is the very course, Pasha, which 



Chapter XXIX ] 



EOTHEN 



your rash officers dare to think of adopting 
with us! Those mad and reckless men 
would have actually dealt towards a Russian 
general officer and an English gentleman as 
if they had been wretched Israelites ! Never, 
never will we submit to such an indignity. 
His Imperial Majesty knows how to protect 
his nobles from insult, and would never 
endure that a general of his army should be 
treated in matter of quarantine as though 
he were a mere Eastern Jew! " This argu- 
ment told with great effect; the Pasha fairly 
admitted that he felt its weight, and he now 
only struggled to obtain such a compromise 
as might partly save his dignity: he wanted 
us to perform a quarantine of one day for 
form's sake, and in order to show his people 
that he was not utterly defied; but finding 
that we were inexorable, he not only aban- 
doned his attempt, but promised to supply 
us with horses. 

When the discussion had arrived at this 
happy conclusion, chibouks and coffee 
were brought, and we passed, I think, nearly 
an hour in friendly conversation. The 
Pasha, it now appeared, had once been a 
prisoner of war in Russia: during his cap- 
tivity he could not have failed to learn the 
greatness of the Czar's power, and it was 
this piece of knowledge perhaps which made 
409 



EOTHEN 



[Chapter XXIX 



him more alive than an untraveled Turk 
might have been to the force of my com- 
rade's eloquence. 

The Pasha now gave us a generous feast. 
Our promised horses were brought without 
much delay. I gained my loved saddle once 
more, and when the moon got up and 
touched the heights of Taurus, we were joy- 
fully winding our way through the first of 
his rugged defiles. 



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